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 There's always more to the story with Section 8 On Tour. Road warrior, Irish Steve, brings his account of the Fire's 1-0 win at San Jose to Backdraft.
The trip began early on Saturday morning, five members of Section 8 boarding a plane bound for Oakland. The plane was due to land 2 hours before kickoff, so we were glad to take off on time without any mishaps. The Herr had already finished 1 beer before we got on the plane, and before we had hit 10,000 feet he had finished another one, much to our amusement (Tom Dunmore, Andy Braudy, Joliet Jerry and myself) as well as our air hostess who The Herr called “waitress” throughout the whole flight. Most of the talk on the plane surfaced around the Guppy situation, but after 4 or 5 beers, Tom, myself, and the Herr caught up on some sleep. To our delight, the plane landed 20 minutes early, and we caught a cab to the Oakland Coliseum.
We all filed out to find Peter Wilt, Liz, English Matt, and Ben Burton waiting for us with a bottle of Makers Mark and a case of Sierra Nevada. As the tailgate progressed, more and more Fire fans showed up, and we walked over to join the Earthquakes tailgate. They were a very hospitable bunch who were only too happy to share and talk to the Fire fans. John Thorrington's brother was also at the tailgate. We entered the stadium in full voice and set up the banners as the team finished their warm up’s. The game was not 10 minutes old before Section 8 Chairman Ben Burton was ejected from the stadium for reasons that are still unknown. His ejection resulted in Peter sprinting up the Coliseum steps with surprising speed and agility to get the name of the Earthquakes staff member who was giving us a lot of trouble. Not long after that, Chad Barrett gave the Fire the lead, sending us into raptures. Barrett’s goal was one of few things we could see clearly even though we had paid $45 for our tickets. 
The rest of the game was devoid of excitement until the drama of stoppage time. The combination of the Quakes hitting the bar, the post, and missing an open goal from 2 yards out was a lot for us to handle considering the action was happening less than 20 feet from us. Everyone had to catch their breath when the final whistle was blown. We all knew that we had dodged a massive bullet during the last 4 minutes. After the final whistle, every member of the Fire roster clapped us off. Jon Busch threw his gloves into the crowd, and I was lucky enough to catch one. We also sang for Ivan Guerrero. He gave us a clap and a wave which was good to see. 
After the game we enjoyed some delicious tamales outside the stadium and said goodbye to some of the Section 8 members. Tom, Peter, Columbus Matt, Patt, Liz, Ben, English Matt, and myself took the BART train to a bar in San Francisco for a few pints with the San Jose fans. Chatting with the Quakes fans, we checked the scores of the other MLS games which all went our way. Later that night, Ben proceeded to have very interesting conversation via text message from a San Jose front office member. The employee called Ben a few names, and he wanted to come to the bar we were at to “talk to Ben". We all found this situation hilarious, and even more so when the San Jose employee said he wasn’t goingto come to the bar after all because it was “too late." He made sure to remind Ben that he “knew where he was” which made us laugh even harder. Nobody was in the mood to get up early to watch the morning's Man U vs Arsenal game, so we slept in, spending our last hours in San Francisco walking by the bay and taking pictures with our Fire scarves through Chinatown. We then hopped back on the BART for the airport to conclude our successful trip. We were all glad to return to Chicago with sun tans and three vital points.
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