Norfolk, VA - 45 year old Soccer fan David Gregory started a recent conversation with 16 year old nephew Charles Lattermore by utilizing the words, "Back In My Day". This turn of a phrase signified the first time Mr Gregory attempted to show young whippersnappers how it used to be for soccer fans in the United States.
"You don't know what it was like when soccer was the 4th sport in the US, the federation was dysfunctional, the men's team wasn't very good and the league was turning over and growing."
"I didn't know what I was doing at first, but the words came out of my mouth so fast. He was sitting there complaining about how there wasn't an MLS game on television until later in the afternoon and it just happened. 'BACK IN MY DAY, we didn't even have games on TV, and you couldn't get any coverage in the news at all. Hell we didn't even have a league!' I then realized that this made me exceptionally old and that having lived through the bad-old-days of American soccer gave me a license to automatically register his complaints to that of a serial whiner."
Gregory stated that he used to have to catch soccer by watching the game on Soccer Made In Germany on PBS during the 80's, and that he had friends bring back newspapers from Europe if they visited during the 90's. "I was the only person on my street who subscribed to European magazines, but even then it was nearly impossible to follow any team in the United States before 1994. These young whippersnappers today don't know how good they have it, and because of this I'm going to make sure that they know they can never complain about soccer in the United States."
Not only that, but Mr Gregory stated that it is the mandate of every fan in the United States to not even try to fix things but rather to bask in the remembrances of storytellers like Mr Gregory himself who will educated children on the wasteland time of United States soccer. "These young punks don't know, and they shouldn't complain or try to fix anything. It's all good now regardless of how they think they can 'fix the league' or want some European setup to make things better. At least we can WATCH games now. DONT COMPLAIN YOU YOUNG PUNKS. All it takes is whiners and BAM.. we don't have a league and BAM... we are back in the dark ages again and BAM... it's just like the NASL all over again in every way. You don't even know. It just takes one person turning off the television and everything will very clearly revert back to 1981. This is why I give wholesale support to the idea of one league and Garber be praised. Now stop complaining you young whippersnappers."
.... Mr Gregory put a Werther's Original in his mouth here...
"Also, did I tell you about the time that Alexi Lalas played for Padova and we found about this 2 weeks later. It was a glorious time and we used to tie an onion to our belt as was the time."
The Nutmeg News will have more on this as people get older and continue to complain about the youth of today, what with their cell phones and selfies. WHY DON'T YOU PULL YOURSELVES UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS AND STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT ALL THAT INSANE DEBT THAT YOU ARE IN ALL THE TIME? Why I bought my first house for $26,000 and walked both ways to school by the time I was 4 years old.