Thanks for another year, and please take the off-season to rest your voices for 2012, opening day will be here before you know it.

Our 2012 Membership Drive will be January 21st, 2012 at Legend’s from 7-9pm, followed by the USA-Venezuela game from 9-11pm.

Happy Holidays, and we’ll see you then.

- ESC

The official voting thread for the 2012 Board Elections for the Empire Supporters Club can be found here:

http://www.empiresupportersclub.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=3041

We encourage all members to vote

As a reminder:

Voting will close at 5pm on Saturday, December 17th. Please remember that you must be a 2011 ESC member to vote. Voting will be done via online poll in this thread only. If you have problems voting please shoot us an e-mail at empiresupportersclub@gmail.com so that we can help you.

Please find below a list of candidates, in alphabetical order:

- Paul Andersen

- Nicole DiCrecchio

- Robert Hak

- Timothy Hall

- Piotr Paczynski

- Amanda Reichert

- Eric Rios

Each has made a submission, and those are listed individually in the thread, in alphabetical order by last name. Please take the time to read them all to their conclusion.

We wish all of them the best of luck.

As a reminder, we have 4 spots open on the board, 3 for 2 year terms and 1 for a 1 year term. The three candidates with the most votes will get 2 year appointments, the candidate with the 4th most votes will get appointed to the board to finish Konrad’s 2010-2012 term. You can vote 4 times, once for each open seat.

Thank you.

All members are hereby advised that the 2012 elections for Empire Supporters Club board of directors will be voted on by the membership in December, and your participation is encouraged.

We have planned our 2011 annual meeting for December 17th from 4-7pm at El Pastor Restaurant in Newark, at 570 Market street. Voting will begin during the week of December 12th, and will conclude at the end of that meeting. All voting will be done electronically, and the winners of the vote will be announced after the vote has been verified, within 72 hours of the completion of the annual meeting. We are asking all members to please take this time to register for the ESC boards, if you haven’t already, as the voting will likely be done via the ESC website.

Due to an earlier retirement, there are 4 spots open for election. Three of these spots are for 2 year terms, and 1 is for a one year term. As long as 4 or more people run, the three candidates with the most votes will be elected to a 2 year term, and the candidate with the 4th most votes will be elected to a one year term.

Per the by laws of the corporation, to be eligible to vote, you must be a member of the club in good standing for the year of 2011. Registering for the web site now ensures that there are no snags when you try to vote. Note, to be registered, you have to be a 2011 ESC member. If you have not already purchased a membership for 2011, please do not try to do so, as memberships are closed for the year. You can sign up again in January.

To be eligible to RUN for a seat on the board, the following qualifications apply:

- You must be a natural person over the age of 18
- You must be a dues paying member of the ESC for the last 2 consecutive years (years 2010 & 2011)
- You must submit a signed letter of intent (sending an email to us at empiresupportersclub@gmail.com is fine)

We are requesting that all members who intend to run for the board please send us the letters of intent to run by midnight, December 1st.

Once the notices of intent to run are received, we will officially schedule the start of the election (likely December 12th.)

You may, should you choose to do so, also include a 1 page letter of text to be sent out to each club member, highlighting your qualifications & why you believe you would be a good candidate. Note, this is optional, it is not required. Submissions of this text must be made by 5pm on December 11th, so that we can send it out prior to the vote commencing during the week of the 12th. You do not need to have that to us by December 1st, but we are just advising you of the option to have it in case you’d like to spend some time in the upcoming weekend working on it.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

We will conclude the voting for the 2012 ESC Board Member Elections at the conclusion of the meeting (voting will be done online).

There will be a food buffet and cash bar.

We will also plan for a player appearance. Please save the date, we all look forward to seeing you there.

We are asking, begging, pleading and darn near threatening to shoot you in order to get you out to Legends this Saturday night for the New York vs. Dallas game at 8:30pm.

The bar, the team, all 3 supporters clubs and more will be united in an effort to try to get every darn MLS fan in Manhattan & the surrounding hemisphere out to the viewing party this weekend as we try to set a record attendance number for an away viewing party, try to set a record for noise at a bar in midtown, and try to scream loud enough into the TV that Dallas’ keeper gets injured again (Go Thierry!).

The bar is reserving the entire street level floor for us, and they’ll have the game up on all of the TVs, with sound. (No Mayweather fight PPV nonsense at the door). They are bringing in the Modelo girls, and if you aren’t familiar, that means women who sell beer for a living. So there. There will be $ 4 Coronas, the $ 10 Red Bull food menu, $ 5 pints, $ 6 Stella & Guinness and the first 15 people to show up in Red Bulls jerseys get a free pint of Modelo.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

The front office will also be there in full effect, giving away RBNY swag.

BUT, THERE’S MORE.

MSG will be live on site, a videographer will be there, and ‘We Live Soccer’ will be using the footage. So, get your Andy Warhol on & be famous for 15 minutes. (In the future). Finally, NBC Sports will also have reps there, so it’ll be a good chance to make a first impression to get some of the exposure soccer supporters deserve.

So, seriously, what else were you going to do this weekend? Exactly.

Football Factory/Legends is at 6 W. 33rd street, just west of 5th Avenue and across the street from the Empire State Building.

You can get there by just about every subway in midtown, including the N/Q/R/1/2/3/6/A/C/E/D/F/V. Plus, it’s a block from the 33rd street PATH train, and 2 blocks from Penn Station.

Have a question? Shoot us an e-mail at empiresupportersclub@gmail.com.

See you there. Or else we get to shoot you.*

*with silly string.

We’ve been supporting the USA up & down the east coast for over a decade, and from New York to Mexico City to Korea, Germany and South Africa, we have brought the ruckus time & again for both club & country. This time it’s Red, White & Blue, in OUR house, for the first time.

The USA takes on Ecuador at 7pm on Tuesday, October 11th as Klinsi hits the Big Apple, bringing a new look offense, some great energy and a whole lot of blank slates to the pitch for the first US Men’s national team game ever held at Red Bull Arena.

All South Ward supporters clubs are joining forces for this effort, and we’re doing a pre-sale for our members. We will have seats in our home sections of the south ward, and we’ll rock the box for 90 minutes like we always do. We control the drums, the sound and the fury. We’ll set the table, you will bring the ruckus. Other fans from around the area who either don’t root for New York or don’t follow MLS will be there, so, make sure you turn up to show them how it’s done. The section will be standing & singing only, as always.

Just because we love you, tickets are only $ 28.25. You can pick them up at the away match viewing for TFC on October 1st or at the home game vs. LA on October 4th (as long as they are mailed by USSF in time). If you like you can have them shipped to you, BUT YOU MUST MAKE SURE YOUR PAYPAL BILLING ADDRESS IS CORRECT. We’re not amazon.com over here, help us out by double checking to prevent any problems.

Click on the link below to order ticket.

Shipping is $ 4 per order. Limit 4 per person, offer open to ESC, GSS & Viking Army Supporters. Sale ends at 8pm Monday, September 19th.

Ticket sales have ended.

MLS Supporters Challenge 2011

A combined team of ESC, Viking Army & GSS played against two teams of ManUtd supporters from the American wing of their supporters club, OneUnitedUSA (manutdusa.org).

The South Ward teams both made it to the final, where SouthWard Grey beat SouthWard White on penalty kicks, as the ESC’s Kenny Hernandez drilled the 10th & final PK to win it. Coming off his MVP performance winning the Kevin Brown Belt of Pain during the season kick-off fund raiser in Harrison, Kenny is now picking up silverware so fast, by this time next year he’ll win Emirates Cup all by himself. Such a diva!

So, please click on the video and enjoy 3 minutes and 20 seconds of not working at your job, or something.

Thanks!

We, the unified supporters groups of the South Ward, are writing to formally express our protest of Red Bull New York’s recent treatment of the US Open Cup.

For those unfamiliar, the US Open Cup is the oldest club competition in our country. It has a long, rich tradition both in our local area and across this country. While it may not rival MLS Cup in prestige, it is a trophy valued by fans of club soccer across this country. As a team without a trophy throughout our long history, we look forward each year to competing in this tournament. Some of our franchise’s most glorious wins- and some of its worst losses- have come in the open cup. Many of us became long time fans of this team during events like our run to the US Open Cup final in 2003.

Having beaten FC New York to earn a place in the quarterfinals, we were looking forward to our team competing to win a chance to host a semi-final, and possibly making another run to the final. Other organizations in our league, including Chicago and Seattle- regardless of what other engagements they are involved in- always make competing in the US Open Cup a priority both for their organization and for their fans.

Our organization displayed no such priority by sending a minimum of players and two assistant coaches to Chicago to compete in the game. We are in no way disparaging the efforts of the players on the field, or the coaches that did go to Chicago; we truly believe that they competed to the last to win the game, and we thank them for their efforts on our behalf. We understand that in sports you can’t always win every game that you play. The one thing you can control, however,  is putting forth an effort. We are not upset that our players lost the game, but rather that the organization did not make an honest attempt to try to win it.

If the coach was not able to travel for medical reasons, that could have been stated to the fans in advance. However, no such communication was made, leaving fans to speculate that neither he nor his top assistant deigned to even travel to the game; the team didn’t even bother to explain his absence until questioned after the fact. These acts show the competition a lack of respect. Bringing a minimum of players and starting a squad of reserves and substitute players shows the competition a lack of respect. Not honestly attempting to win the game disrespects the dozen fans that drove to Chicago and back to watch the game, and to lend the team what small support they could.

Over the years we have expressed frustration to this organization that we felt the competition was not always being taken seriously, and those complaints have generally fallen on deaf ears. We now feel that our ordinary annual expression of frustration at the organization’s inability to take this tournament seriously is no longer adequate.

For the first half of Saturday’s game against Dallas, our combined clubs will remain silent, in protest of this organizations casual approach to taking the on-field success of our team seriously. We are likewise asking members to review their purchase of season tickets, and whether such commitment to the organization is warranted in light of these events.

We certainly understand that Red Bull has made great strides in building a world-class stadium, hiring an internationally respected General Manager and coaches, and filling our roster with talented players. We do appreciate those efforts. However, this team must exist first and foremost as an entity with legitimate sporting ambitions, or else it surrenders itself to being a farce, as it did last week.

It has simply become hard for us to take seriously an organization, and to spend the hours we do pouring our lives into supporting it, with such  a tenuous understanding of how necessary competitions like this are to its most passionate supporters.

We would like to formally request an apology to all supporters of this organization, and to ask that this team commit itself to taking all legitimate sporting competitions into which it is entered (MLS Cup, Open Cup, CONCACAF Champions League) with the respect that those competitions deserve. With the same respect shown by other clubs in our league.

Signed,

Empire Supporters Club

Garden State Supporters

Viking Army