Locker Room post game

[jfkbengals]

(01-23-2022, 11:57 AM)grampahol Wrote: Love the bandwagon transfer form.. lol
I tried to post it..maybe someone else can. 

That reminds me of a fun story for me.

In 2003, I watched the second game of the season against the Raiders at a bar with a buddy of mine who is a Raiders fan.  This bar was on the other side of town from where I normally watched the games, but it was where he and the local Raiders Booster club watched the games.  I lived half way between the two places, so it was fine with me to go there.  They were all great guys, and we unfortuantely lost by 3 despite an incredibly bad officiating call.  They all acknowledged they would not have won without the bad call and were gracious in their victory.  This was a late game, as it was in Oakland.  As we arrived to the bar, I noticed a stupid amount of Steelers fans, and my buddy told me they were a local booster club and met there weekly as well.

So two weeks later, the place I normally went to literally turned our game off against the Browns on the third play of the game, claiming no one was watching it and someone who had been there for some time wanted a better view of the Cowboys game.  Now, I had been there since 11:00 and already had quite the tab run up, AND I knew the guy who asked for the TV to be turned.  He was a friend of a friend, who came over to me to say hello as soon as he got there... 6 minutes before kick off!  Even the bartenders pointed out to the manager that I had been going there for 2 seasons and had been watching that TV for several hours, but he didn't care.  So I told him to go eff himself, paid my tab, and left.  I tried a couple of places nearby and couldn't find a place where I could see the game, so I headed out to where I had watched the Raiders game, knowing that it would be on a couple of screens since that Steelers group liked to have all of the division games viewable.

I caught the end of the game, Marvin's first victory, and decided I would give that place my business for as long as they were being good to me.  The following week I watched our loss to Buffalo there, alongside the neighbors of one Dan Ross.  Nice older couple who were big Bills fans and stopped in the area on their way home from visiting an adult child.  They had stopped for the night nearby, and were taking the day off from travel because it was game day.  At that point I new I liked the place.

I was there every week.  Week 11 a young unknown Bengal by the name of Chad Johnson guaranteed a victory against the undefeated Chiefs.  The Steelers fans, who knew the Chiefs were an obstacle to them, were cheering alongside of me the whole way.  The Raiders fans, who steadily trickled in throughout the second half, were also cheering alongside me as their division rival was defeated.  Yup, pretty cool place.

So now, to get to the point of this story, the Bengals sat at 6-5, going into Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers who had already defeated us in Cincinnati earlier in the season.  The Bengals took an early lead into half time, but in the second half Pittsburgh fought back.  With 4 minutes to go, Pittsburgh got the ball and started methodically marching the length of the field.  At this point in time, the majority of the Raiders boosters were all there pulling for us to hold on, but their heads were also starting to hang low seeing what looked like the inevitable end.  With just over one minute left on the clock, Pittsburgh scored a TD to take the lead.  At that point, one of the Steelers fans passed me a clipboard, saying "Here's our membership form, you may as well sign up with a winner", and their whole group exploded into laughter and applause.  Every non Steelers fan in the bar began to cheer with sheer insanity as Jon Kitna then led the offense quickly down the field to endzone with less than half a minute to go.  Pittsburgh's offense got on the field with 10 seconds or so left, and the place went beserk when the clock went to zero and the Bengals were victorious.  I quickly grabbed a pen off the table and scribbled something on a cocktail napkin.  I stood up, turned to the same gentleman who handed my the clipboard, and loudly expressed while passing him the napkin "Here's our sign up sheet, so ya'll can come join a winner!".  THE ENTIRE BAR WENT CRAZY AT THAT MOMENT!

So yeah, long ass story about the band wagon transfer form!