CINCINNATI — You’ll find few people who support Cincinnati more than Bill Johnson.
The former labor negotiator lived in the city’s downtown area for nearly 20 years. He loves the food scene, the culture and even the nightlife. You’ll rarely catch him not sporting his signature Cincinnati Reds ball cap.
But for all his love for the Queen City, there’s one thing about his adopted hometown he’ll never support — FC Cincinnati.
What You Need To Know
- Many longtime soccer fans in southwest Ohio grew up cheering for the Columbus Crew before the emergence of FC Cincinnati a few years ago
- Hundreds of Crew fans will be in Cincinnati this weekend for the first leg of the Hell is Real Derby
- While a competitive rivalry, fans of both teams view the matchup as good for the state and the sport
Johnson is among a group of Cincinnati residents who support the city’s biggest Major League Soccer rival, Columbus Crew SC. The club from central Ohio debuted during the league’s inaugural season in 1996. FC Cincinnati didn’t appear on the soccer scene until more than 20 years later as a minor-league franchise.
On Saturday, Johnson and hundreds of Crew supporters will converge downtown ahead of the in-state matchup known as Hell is Real Derby.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
“I can’t wait,” said Johnson, who’s attending the match with his son, Collin. They’ve attended dozens of Crew games together over the years, but this will be their first at TQL Stadium.
“I hope the crew wins by quite a few goals, personally,” Collin said. The Milwaukee resident was in Columbus on Wednesday to watch the Crew blank LA Galaxy, 2-nil. He headed to Cincinnati Thursday to hang with his dad.
“We’ve been lucky enough to see quite a few matches together, but getting to see a match with my dad at TQL Stadium is going to be a pretty cool experience.”
A rivalry is born
Some people refer to the rivalry matchup as the Ohio Derby. However, the game got its “Hell is Real” nickname from the infamous words on I-71 road sign between the two cities.
The teams first met in 2017 in the U.S. Open Cup while Cincinnati was still in the United Soccer League, a second-tier league in North America. The Orange and Blue won that inaugural match 1-0, knocking Columbus out of the tournament and advancing to the quarterfinals.
Since FC Cincinnati joined MLS in 2019, the teams have met twice every regular season, with both cities hosting a match. Columbus has won five of them.
The clubs have drawn, or tied, four times. FCC’s last win came at the end of 2020.
The Johnsons attended last year’s Ohio Derby in Columbus.
“It was wonderful,” Bill said of watching his side’s 2-0 victory among nearly 21,000 other soccer fans. “Collin came down and some of my friends from Cincinnati there. We go together, talked some smack during halftime and it was it was just fun. It was a great time.”
Things are a little different right now, though. Cincinnati comes into the matchup at TQL Stadium as the top team in the Eastern Conference. They lead the table in wins (eight) and points (27) through 13 matches.
Columbus ranks fifth in the conference.
But as the old saying goes, you throw the record book out when two rivals get together, noted Andrew Maloney, a supporter of the Orange and Blue “since the beginning.”
Last year’s playoff run by FC Cincinnati — the first since the team joined the MLS — marked a “turn in the series,” said Maloney, 33.
“They like to flaunt their trophies and stuff in front of us, but they’ve also been around almost 30 years,” Maloney said of Crew fans. “Props to them on having two or three cups, but we’ve only been in be in the league for four years, so I think we’re doing pretty well.”
“A lot of Cincinnati fans grew up being Crew fans, so it’s fun to see that rivalry kind of being born out of both fan bases is really cool,” he added. “It’s a lot of fun, and the fans have a lot of fun with it.”
Collin described the back-and-forth between fans of the two clubs as “aggressive, but in a positive way.”
He has a soft spot for FC Cincinnati fans for how supportive they were during the “Save the Crew” movement a few years ago. The team’s former owner, Anthony Precourt, tried to move the Crew to Austin, Texas, but the support of fans helped derail those plans.
“The rivalry has been a fantastic for the sport,” Collin said. “It’s great for Ohio to have two teams that are better thriving.”
Your fandom travels with you
Bill and Collin Johnson have been off-and-on season-ticket holders since 1996, even though neither has lived within two hours of Columbus for nearly two decades.
It all started as a way for a father to get closer to his son.
“I was a baseball fan and every other sport except soccer,” the elder Johnson said candidly. “We didn’t have a soccer team in my high school, but my son, from an early age, was a soccer player and pretty good. When the Crew came into existence, I bought season tickets to give us something to do together.”
Collin grew up playing the game and enjoying the Crew casually. His passion for the team got a little more serious as he got into high school and then college. He’d often go to matches with friends when his dad couldn’t go.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love the Crew,” Collin said. “Sure, there’ve been ups and down, but they’ve always been our team.”
In Historic Crew Stadium, the Johnsons would sit in the old North End. That’s a time when Crew supporter groups were a little more spread out. He remembers boos raining down on legendary Tim Howard while he played in net for the now-defunct New York/New Jersey MetroStars.
“I remember hearing the north end just give him as much grief as they could during the game, which was just a really fun experience,” Collin said. He fondly remembered sports trips to Chicago and a couple of historic Dos A Cero matches between the Mexico and USA men’s national teams in Columbus.
But one of the best parts of any game, no matter the score, was the sometimes hours-long trips to and from the game.
“It was just something that he and I did together,” Collin said.
Collin’s dad is still a big fan as well, even though he now lives in enemy territory. He still proudly supports his Crew scarf and will raise a pint in victory if his team pulls out a win on Saturday.
Switching your team isn’t easy, Johnson said. He compared it to the situation Cleveland Browns fans in southern Ohio went through when the Cincinnati Bengals joined the NFL in 1968.
Johnson grew up in Pike County, Ohio and remains a Browns fan today.
“I’m retired from the University of Cincinnati, but I’m not a UC fan. But anytime UC or the Bengals or FC Cincinnati wins, it’s good for the city,” he said. “So, if FC Cincinnati isn’t playing the Crew, I’ll root for them. But if they are? Well, it’s, ‘Go Crew.’”
Kile Yurchak, 36, admitted to not being a big soccer fan for most of his life. The Cincinnati native had a few cousins in Columbus who liked the Crew, but soccer was never “his sport.” It wasn’t until 2010, when he attended a Crew road match in Chicago, that he knew he’d found a team, he said.
“They weren’t all my friends before the trip, but after that trip,” said Yurchak, 36.
Yurchak attended a few home matches the following season and got season tickets the year after that.
“I was there pretty much every home match for the next couple years,” he said.
His attendance slid a bit in 2014 after he started bartending at Rhinehaus, one of Cincinnati’s first soccer bars. Yurchak worked a lot of weekends, so to get his Crew fix, he’d watch on a TV at work.
Columbus Crew SC had a two-decade run as Ohio’s dominant soccer franchise before FC Cincinnati burst onto the scene.
Yurchak recalled having to wire an old laptop to a few TVs to stream a “janky broadcast” of FCC’s first match just to see “if fans would get into it.”
“We packed the place,” he added. “I remember just being like looking at Aaron (Kohlhepp, one of the bar’s owners) and just being like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a thing, isn’t it?’”
Even then, they were still in the USL. There wasn’t much competition. “You could be a fan of both teams,” he said. “You had your MLS team and your USL team.”
But in Cincinnati, fans took FCC a little more seriously as they found success. Things ramped up to another level after the U.S. Open Cup run that included knocking off Columbus. Then, in 2019, they got the call-up to the big leagues.
“At that point, it became pretty clear there was a line being drawn,” Yurchak said.
Today, Yurchak refers to himself as a “Crew-leaning fan.” He has a lot of fans who still support the team and a “lifetime of memories” in the Gold and Yellow.
Yurchak hopes for a close game on Saturday. He hopes a team scores in the closing minutes. That way, he said, everyone has a good time, but one team still has bragging rights.
“I just love that Ohio has two great soccer teams. It makes the season a little more fun,” he said.
Expect Crew fans everywhere on Saturday
On Saturday, soccer fans will be at Rhinehaus for a block party to celebrate the bar’s 10th anniversary. They’ll show the game on the more than a dozen TVs, including an oversize projection TV outside. It’s one of several events planned throughout the day on Saturday.
Cobblestone is hosting a day-long party for Crew supporters. There will be at least one food truck and several beers from Columbus breweries on tap, a company spokesperson said.
The bar’s relationship with Crew supporters began three years ago. It started with a “small group of local Cincinnati fans,” like Johnson, the spokesperson said. But it ballooned to more than 500 fans last year.
The Johnsons plan to stop at Rhinehaus and Cobblestone on Saturday, Collin said, and likely Washington Park for a pre-game celebration. But he stressed that the itinerary is up to his old man.
For his part, Johnson said he doesn’t really care where they go. He just wants to be with his son as they cheer for their team.
“Crew games with him have always been great, and I don’t expect Saturday to be any different,” he said.