Few bar-stool debates are more tiresome than arguments over which team's fans have suffered the most. But it's hard to imagine a season much worse than the one Kansas City Chiefs fans endured last year. On the field, the team had the N.F.L.'s worst record; off it, a starting linebacker killed his girlfriend before shooting himself in front of the coach and general manager.
By season's end, Chiefs fans were wearing black to Arrowhead Stadium.
Like those who relocate from other cities, emigrants from the Kansas City, Mo., area - and I'm one - use the games to reconnect with their hometown. But last season, Chiefs fans gave up the ritual of finding a bar willing to show the game. It didn't seem worth getting off the couch.
'Altogether, I think we had six people last season,' said Josh Bowen, a Kansas native who owns John Brown Smokehouse, a Kansas City-style barbecue joint in Queens that he hoped would become a hub for Chiefs fans.
This season has produced much better memories.
Kansas City entered Sunday night's game at Denver - the Chiefs' most anticipated regular season matchup in many years - as the league's only undefeated team. The Chiefs' surprising success has had fans looking for a place to watch the games, and has turned Bowen's restaurant on a sparse strip of 44th Drive into a headquarters for Kansas City supporters.
'We're maxed out,' Bowen said before Sunday's game. 'I'm bringing in tables and trying to rearrange things to fit everyone. If they beat Denver, I might need to start renting a tent out back.'
The fan club that has developed at John Brown has grown with the Chiefs' win total. Sara McKemy, who moved from Kansas City three years ago, struggled to find a base for watching the Chiefs, especially when they were bad, so she got in touch with Bowen before this season and invited several friends to John Brown for the first game.
It took some coaxing. The restaurant is out of the way and has only two televisions. But McKemy's friends invited their friends, who invited other friends, and by midseason, the back room at John Brown's was filled with red jerseys. McKemy designed T-shirts with the Chiefs' logo in place of the heart in 'I [Heart] New York,' and has made several three-hour drives to a liquor store on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border to pick up cases of Boulevard, a Kansas City beer.
'We've had some Jets and Giants fans come in and say, 'Hey, can you turn on the Giants game?' ' Bowen said. 'I'm like: 'Look around dude. Are you nuts? This is our special time, so leave us alone.' I haven't had to disrespect any native New Yorkers, but I will if I have to.'
Many fans said that as much as they were attracted by the football and the cuisine, they appreciated the chance to be with others from their hometown. 'Football season gets us together more often than the rest of the year,' said Kellie Johnson, who reconnected with her childhood friend McKemy. (So far, I've run into a former high school classmate, a cousin and my junior prom date.)
Bowen, 37, sits at a preferred spot by the bar, and after each win, he plays Queen's 'We Are the Champions' over the audio system. He moved to New York in 2008 hoping to make it as a blues musician. He performed a one-man show in which he played banjo, high hat, bass drum and harmonica, using the name Trainwreck Washington, but had trouble landing stable work and started barbecuing meat in his backyard, selling it at a local bar.
He opened John Brown in 2010, hoping to produce a facsimile of the barbecue he grew up with, serving strawberry soda on tap and using a rub heavy with brown sugar. 'It's hard to find good barbecue,' McKemy said of New York's offerings. 'I don't think my roommate has ever seen me more excited than when we walked in here the first time.'
Bowen said he wasn't sure how many people to expect on Sunday. It was the Chiefs' first game on national television, which meant many fans might watch from home. (One regular took a flight to Denver, promising to wear his club shirt to the game.)
By kickoff, 50 fans had piled in, filling the back room and spilling into the front of the restaurant. 'We're gonna win, of course,' said Dustin Johnson, who had arrived 90 minutes before game time, said. 'That's my Midwestern optimism.'
Bowen said, 'We're not really New Yorkers when we get together for these games.' He added: 'Our place turns into Arrowhead. It's nice to feel home even when you're not home at all.'
Post a Comment