Pictured: Sporting KC Season Ticket Member Barbara Goebel with her daughter Hannah
Sunday is a special day for mothers around the world. It’s also a special day for hundreds upon hundreds of women in the Sporting Kansas City community.
That’s when the calendar hits Mother’s Day, an annual celebration honoring motherhood, maternal bonds and the powerful influence of mothers in society.
On the cusp of this special date, SportingKC.com is sharing the stories of two mothers who have enriched the Sporting Kansas City supporter culture for the last decade — or two — while making the club an integral part of their respective lives.
In many ways, Nancy Wilson and Barbara Goebel represent two equally passionate yet dissimilar groups of fans that don Sporting blue at Children’s Mercy Park for every home match.
Wilson, a Season Ticket Member with her husband since the club’s inaugural 1996 season at Arrowhead Stadium, is an unquestioned soccer-holic whose entire family — grandchildren and all — has grown up around the sport in some form or another since the 1970s. Few have witnessed the game’s growth in the U.S. quite like Wilson, who supported the NASL’s Oakland Stompers in the late 1970s and attended multiple matches at Stanford Stadium during the 1984 Summer Olympics.
“We don't miss a game at Children’s Mercy Park unless we have to, Wilson said. “We didn't get season tickets to come occasionally. We're there when it's 20 degrees and when it's 100 degrees.”
Goebel’s background aligns more closely with the thousands of fans who caught soccer fever when the Kansas City Wizards rebranded to Sporting Kansas City, although her first matchday experiences date back to the club’s transitory days at CommunityAmerica Ballpark. Her family bought season tickets ahead of the momentous 2011 MLS campaign, and the following year she became a founding member of the Ladies of SKC supporters section that began in the pulsating Members Stand and gradually spread to all sections of the venue.
“I love the feeling of membership as a fan,” said Goebel, who lives an hour outside of Kansas City. "So this is really the only time we get to feel as connected with Kansas City as we do. My family feels ownership and pride in Children’s Mercy Park, because we were there from when it opened."
“We weren’t 96ers, and we don't have as much of a backstory as a lot of fans do, but we're there all the time. Every week it feels like we're doing something with the club.”
Although Wilson and Goebel offer two different glimpses of Sporting Kansas City fanhood, both mothers are tied to the club through unwavering support and an overall love of soccer that they have spread to their family members.
Before moving to Kansas City in 1990, Wilson and her husband coached their two children as young soccer players growing up in California. Upon settling in the Midwest, she fondly recalls the 1994 World Cup as a catalyst that helped the U.S. land Major League Soccer as its designated first division, as well as the 1999 Women’s World Cup in which the United States hoisted the trophy on home turf.
“Soccer is a game I don’t think you can watch on television and enjoy nearly as much as in the stadium,” Wilson said, “so I brought all of my grandkids to Arrowhead Stadium or CommunityAmerica Ballpark as toddlers.”
These experiences only strengthened her family’s connection to the sport. Every one of Wilson’s children and grandchildren played soccer growing up. She currently enjoys watching her 15-year-old grandson, Asher, play at the youth level. The two of them frequently attend matches together, as Asher is an ardent Sporting KC fan who knows just about everything there is to know about the team and its players — their stats, their backgrounds, their playing styles.
Wilson admits that the atmosphere at cavernous Arrowhead Stadium in the late 1990s and early 2000s sometimes suffered. But it did nothing to prevent her from seeing every home match live in person, cheering on the likes of Preki, Mo Johnston and Digital Takawira. This fervor was justly rewarded in 2000 when the Wizards went on a historic run to claim the MLS Cup and MLS Supporters’ Shield double.
“I’ll never forget watching from home and seeing Miklos Molnar’s goal in that game,” Wilson said, referring to the Danish folk hero’s game-winner in the 11th minute of the 2000 MLS Cup, before adding a humorous remark about Sporting Kansas City’s current manager."
“I also remember watching Peter Vermes playing as a defender, and I don’t think he smiled any more than he does now as coach.”
As a heralded charter member among Sporting Kansas City Season Ticket Members — a fan who vividly remembers the team’s modest upbringings in an NFL football stadium and a minor league baseball park — Wilson has all the more appreciation and admiration for state-of-the-art Children’s Mercy Park.
She also takes great pride in wearing the club’s badge alongside equally supportive and enthusiastic fans who are well educated about the game — especially the countless children, teenagers and young adults who will ultimately spread their fervor of Sporting Kansas City to future generations.
“There could not be a nicer stadium,” Wilson said. “There are lots of other fans who have been in the same seats in the same areas since we moved to Children’s Mercy Park. And they have their children and you see them growing up before us. I remember a young couple that sits next to us brought their baby for the first time last year. That’s another young family will be enjoying it for years to come.”
While Wilson has bled different shades of blue since 1996, Goebel in many ways epitomizes the newer, larger group of loyalists who truly fell in love with the club at the turn of this decade.
The Goebel family began attending matches at CommunityAmerica Ball Park in 2008, when Barbara’s daughter Hannah was a high school soccer player. At one match that season, Hannah and her teammates were allowed to be ball kids along the sidelines. It wasn’t quite the turning point to full fandom, but it was close.
Goebel periodically attended the Wizards’ training sessions in 2009 and 2010, marveling at how accessible and friendly the coaches and players were to fans. After the rebrand, the family decided to split 2011 season tickets with another family. By 2012, they had their very own season tickets in the Cauldron.
“The more we went to games, the more connected we felt,” Goebel said. “Sporting KC reflects some of the unique things about this city in a beautiful way.”
The humble, hardworking and prideful vibes of Kansas City are mirrored in its soccer team, Goebel believes. This complexion was one of the factors that spurred her involvement in supporters groups around Children’s Mercy Park. In addition to being one of the first members of Ladies of SKC with her daughter Hannah, she also participates in The Trenches supporters group and serves on the away game committee, helping coordinate the famous Roaddrons that sometimes reach over 1,000 fans for trips to FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids.
“Being a member of several supporters groups — including one I helped built from the group up — there’s a lot of pride in that,” Goebel said.
Some of Goebel’s favorite memories at Children’s Mercy Park, not surprisingly, are the trophy-laden ones: the victorious 2012 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup played under a pair of rainbows and Jimmy Nielsen painting the wall in arctic temperatures following the epic 2013 MLS Cup. Others are more personal and equally emotional, like the look on her daughter’s face as fireworks exploded above the stadium before the 2011 home opener, and when the Cauldron took over the national anthem in 2013 when the singer’s microphone stopped working.
Wilson and Goebel both have high hopes for the club moving forward. The current crop of Sporting Kansas City players — comprised of a veteran core with a handful of effective newcomers — has impressed each of them.
“Everyone in my family knows Benny Feilhaber is my favorite, I like the way he plays,” Wilson said. “But some of these new guys, Ilie and Gerso, are very impressive. I am offensive-minded and I like to see goals and fast action. I think we've got just the right combination this year.”
Regardless of how successful Sporting Kansas City’s 2017 campaign ends up, it’s safe to say Wilson and Goebel will be watching every single minute of the action.
“With everybody who buys a ticket to Children’s Mercy Park, if they continue to buy that ticket, they feel ownership,” Goebel said. “That's part of the thing that I love the very most. I feel like that's my club, and that’s my house.”
