Nathalie Durgnat was falling out of love with soccer.
It was the beginning of 2019, and Nathalie, who lives in Switzerland and is in her mid-30s, was questioning whether she still loved the sport she had been so close to since birth.
“I’ve been a soccer fan my whole life,” Durgnat said. “My father was a coach, so as a kid I was always around a soccer field. But now European soccer has become so elite, it’s caring less and less about the fans I find. As a true fan of the sport myself, it’s really saddening.”
In some sense, it was like an identity crisis. Nathalie, facing disillusionment from her lifelong passion, probably thought she would need something dramatic to rekindle her attachment. One thing is almost certain, though – Nathalie didn’t expect to regain her love for soccer by scrolling through her Twitter feed.
In fact, that’s exactly how it happened.
In January 2019, while looking at her phone, Nathalie stumbled upon an article in Culture Soccer, a French-language soccer blog, profiling a strange team in Wisconsin with a plastic flamingo in its crest: Forward Madison FC. For Nathalie, it was an odd proposition, but there was something there that she liked about it.
“I just thought that a team with a pink flamingo as a mascot was really funny, so I thought I would try to follow the club on Twitter,” she said.
At some point, Nathalie read another article about the team and started interacting with the club online, which led her to the idea of making an entire Twitter account solely devoted to Forward Madison. In February, Nathalie created @ForwardMSN_FR, a French-language fan Twitter feed with almost-daily updates about the team.
“I thought to help me commit to follow the club, creating a Twitter account for the French-speaking fans would be a good idea,” Durgnat said. “As I followed along, I just got more and more into it.”
Nathalie’s fandom from afar convinced her to buy a season ticket to support the team financially, although she donates her seat for every game. Eventually, she began to think about what it would be like to attend a match in person.
“I saw that the atmosphere was really, really cool for a lower-league team, and then I thought that there were home games during the summer, which is usually when I have my longer time off work,” Durgnat said. “I started looking at flights and I saw that it was really expensive, so I thought, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it,’ but the more games I watched, I really wanted to experience it for myself.
“[Eventually] I realized I could actually afford it, so I asked my boss for the time off, and when he gave me the time off, I booked everything.”
Nathalie Durgnat was falling out of love with soccer.
It was the beginning of 2019, and Nathalie, who lives in Switzerland and is in her mid-30s, was questioning whether she still loved the sport she had been so close to since birth.
“I’ve been a soccer fan my whole life,” Durgnat said. “My father was a coach, so as a kid I was always around a soccer field. But now European soccer has become so elite, it’s caring less and less about the fans I find. As a true fan of the sport myself, it’s really saddening.”
In some sense, it was like an identity crisis. Nathalie, facing disillusionment from her lifelong passion, probably thought she would need something dramatic to rekindle her attachment. One thing is almost certain, though – Nathalie didn’t expect to regain her love for soccer by scrolling through her Twitter feed.
In fact, that’s exactly how it happened.
In January 2019, while looking at her phone, Nathalie stumbled upon an article in Culture Soccer, a French-language soccer blog, profiling a strange team in Wisconsin with a plastic flamingo in its crest: Forward Madison FC. For Nathalie, it was an odd proposition, but there was something there that she liked about it.
“I just thought that a team with a pink flamingo as a mascot was really funny, so I thought I would try to follow the club on Twitter,” she said.
At some point, Nathalie read another article about the team and started interacting with the club online, which led her to the idea of making an entire Twitter account solely devoted to Forward Madison. In February, Nathalie created @ForwardMSN_FR, a French-language fan Twitter feed with almost-daily updates about the team.
“I thought to help me commit to follow the club, creating a Twitter account for the French-speaking fans would be a good idea,” Durgnat said. “As I followed along, I just got more and more into it.”
Nathalie’s fandom from afar convinced her to buy a season ticket to support the team financially, although she donates her seat for every game. Eventually, she began to think about what it would be like to attend a match in person.
“I saw that the atmosphere was really, really cool for a lower-league team, and then I thought that there were home games during the summer, which is usually when I have my longer time off work,” Durgnat said. “I started looking at flights and I saw that it was really expensive, so I thought, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it,’ but the more games I watched, I really wanted to experience it for myself.
“[Eventually] I realized I could actually afford it, so I asked my boss for the time off, and when he gave me the time off, I booked everything.”
Nathalie’s trip from Switzerland to Madison went about as smoothly as a pothole on East Washington. Her three flights were delayed, she struggled to make her connections, and by the time she finally arrived (well past 10 p.m.), Nathalie said she was totally exhausted.
When she finally stepped into the terminal, however, Nathalie walked down the stairs to find an entire cohort of FMFC friends waiting for her, including Managing Director Peter Wilt and team captain Connor Tobin. Together, they cheered, took photos and offered Nathalie a temporary contract to “go Full Mingo” for the weekend.
“I really wasn’t expecting that, and it made me feel much better after my three delayed flights,” Durgnat said. “Everyone has been so welcoming, from the officials from the club, the team, the supporters.”
Walking back to the parking lot, Wilt egged Tobin on to “call his shot” and promise a goal for Nathalie. Tobin said he couldn’t guarantee anything (he had not even recorded a single shot all season), but pledged that he would do his best.
After a good night’s sleep, Nathalie woke up the next day in time to take a tour of Breese Stevens Field and explore the city with members of The Flock, Forward Madison’s independent supporters’ group. She’d arrived on a Friday, so there wasn’t time to do much more before that Saturday’s game against Chattanooga.
Instead, she went back to her hotel, took a nap, and got ready for the match.
With game time nearing, Nathalie put on her new jersey, walked to the Avenue Club, and found a pre-match party layered thickly with pink and blue. After spending so long rooting in solitude, suddenly there were hundreds of Forward Madison fans swimming around her eyes. At around 6 p.m., The Flock began marching, and Nathalie joined them as they flowed toward the stadium, singing, chanting, waving homemade banners and turning the heads of nearly anyone they passed.
“The passion is put out there in such a positive manner, that’s really what I will take with me back home,” Durgnat said. “As long as you give everything you have for the team, they will welcome you with open arms.”
At last, Nathalie’s stream of fans reached the stadium, and now there were thousands, a sea of people in all assortments of brightly-colored FMFC paraphernalia spilling out of the sidestreets, the sun’s reflection glinting off their faces. Music reverberated from loudspeakers, and players, distracted from their warm-ups, looked up to see The Flock coursing across the sideline to their stand behind the east-end goal.
A few minutes before kickoff, Kuba Krzyzostaniak, Forward Madison’s Director of Digital Media, pulled Nathalie aside and asked her to come out onto the pitch. Holding her scarf high over her head, Nathalie beamed as she was introduced to the crowd.
Nathalie’s trip from Switzerland to Madison went about as smoothly as a pothole on East Washington. Her three flights were delayed, she struggled to make her connections, and by the time she finally arrived (well past 10 p.m.), Nathalie said she was totally exhausted.
When she finally stepped into the terminal, however, Nathalie walked down the stairs to find an entire cohort of FMFC friends waiting for her, including Managing Director Peter Wilt and team captain Connor Tobin. Together, they cheered, took photos and offered Nathalie a temporary contract to “go Full Mingo” for the weekend.
“I really wasn’t expecting that, and it made me feel much better after my three delayed flights,” Durgnat said. “Everyone has been so welcoming, from the officials from the club, the team, the supporters.”
Walking back to the parking lot, Wilt egged Tobin on to “call his shot” and promise a goal for Nathalie. Tobin said he couldn’t guarantee anything (he had not even recorded a single shot all season), but pledged that he would do his best.
After a good night’s sleep, Nathalie woke up the next day in time to take a tour of Breese Stevens Field and explore the city with members of The Flock, Forward Madison’s independent supporters’ group. She’d arrived on a Friday, so there wasn’t time to do much more before that Saturday’s game against Chattanooga.
Instead, she went back to her hotel, took a nap, and got ready for the match.
With game time nearing, Nathalie put on her new jersey, walked to the Avenue Club, and found a pre-match party layered thickly with pink and blue. After spending so long rooting in solitude, suddenly there were hundreds of Forward Madison fans swimming around her eyes. At around 6 p.m., The Flock began marching, and Nathalie joined them as they flowed toward the stadium, singing, chanting, waving homemade banners and turning the heads of nearly anyone they passed.
“The passion is put out there in such a positive manner, that’s really what I will take with me back home,” Durgnat said. “As long as you give everything you have for the team, they will welcome you with open arms.”
At last, Nathalie’s stream of fans reached the stadium, and now there were thousands, a sea of people in all assortments of brightly-colored FMFC paraphernalia spilling out of the sidestreets, the sun’s reflection glinting off their faces. Music reverberated from loudspeakers, and players, distracted from their warm-ups, looked up to see The Flock coursing across the sideline to their stand behind the east-end goal.
A few minutes before kickoff, Kuba Krzyzostaniak, Forward Madison’s Director of Digital Media, pulled Nathalie aside and asked her to come out onto the pitch. Holding her scarf high over her head, Nathalie beamed as she was introduced to the crowd.
Once the match was underway, Nathalie joined in with The Flock, singing songs she had only heard previously on TV. Despite a 22-hour journey, the atmosphere was so contagious that, she later said, there was never a chance she would have stopped for a rest.
“I didn’t know how I would feel in terms of jet lag or no jet lag, but I really felt the energy of everyone singing, and it got me singing as well,” Durgnat said. “You will not hear it because it’s going to be a written interview, but my voice is cracking up. I didn’t think I could sing and dance around the whole game, but I did. I felt really alive”
Madison scored first in the 20th minute, when Connor Tobin, fulfilling the half-promise he had made to Nathalie the night before, headed home a ball off a corner kick. Pandemonium ensued, arms shooting into the air like fireworks. FMFC had scored first only three times in 15 USL League One matches up to that point, and the joy it brought seemed unbridled as Breese Stevens Field exploded with exhilaration.
Nathalie, too, was enraptured by the celebrations. By this time, she had worked her way up to the front of the supporters’ section, and it wasn’t long before she was invited up to the capo stand to lead the fans in chants.
Although Chattanooga equalized late in the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw, Nathalie said her favorite moment occurred right at the end, when her and the other supporters rose into full voice to push the players on.
“The end of the game, from the 90th minute up until the end of additional time, The Flock kept singing, ‘Madison, Madison,’ and every single player came to shake hands, to thank the supporters for never giving up,” she said. “They never gave up on the field, we never gave up in the stands, and this kind of communion – like, they know we gave everything, we know they gave everything, and even though the three points weren’t there, everyone did our best.”
Afterwards, when the high-fives were over and the night looked finished, there was still one more surprise in store for Nathalie. She made her way over to the players’ entrance, looking for goalkeeper Ryan Coulter, whom she had wanted a photo with to show to a friend back home.
When she found him and explained what she was doing, Coulter told her to wait up. He doubled back to the locker room, and a minute later, emerged with a pair of cleats and a Sharpie in hand.
For Nathalie, Coulter’s autographed boots were the icing on the cake, a final present to bring home along with a trove of happy memories. In fact, she said, it was one of the best nights of her life.
Just months ago, Nathalie Durgnat was a disaffected devotee of European soccer, someone who had been through the highs and lows of fandom, but felt it had lost its sense of authenticity. Now, in the calm darkness of a July night in Wisconsin, holding a pair of sweaty shoes in her hands, that old feeling had returned with a kind of intensity she could not have dreamed of.
Nathalie had fallen in love with soccer again.
“It was really amazing,” she said. “I had such a great time and I was with such a great bunch of people, having fun, supporting the team. To me, that’s what soccer is all about.”
Once the match was underway, Nathalie joined in with The Flock, singing songs she had only heard previously on TV. Despite a 22-hour journey, the atmosphere was so contagious that, she later said, there was never a chance she would have stopped for a rest.
“I didn’t know how I would feel in terms of jet lag or no jet lag, but I really felt the energy of everyone singing, and it got me singing as well,” Durgnat said. “You will not hear it because it’s going to be a written interview, but my voice is cracking up. I didn’t think I could sing and dance around the whole game, but I did. I felt really alive”
Madison scored first in the 20th minute, when Connor Tobin, fulfilling the half-promise he had made to Nathalie the night before, headed home a ball off a corner kick. Pandemonium ensued, arms shooting into the air like fireworks. FMFC had scored first only three times in 15 USL League One matches up to that point, and the joy it brought seemed unbridled as Breese Stevens Field exploded with exhilaration.
Nathalie, too, was enraptured by the celebrations. By this time, she had worked her way up to the front of the supporters’ section, and it wasn’t long before she was invited up to the capo stand to lead the fans in chants.
Although Chattanooga equalized late in the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw, Nathalie said her favorite moment occurred right at the end, when her and the other supporters rose into full voice to push the players on.
“The end of the game, from the 90th minute up until the end of additional time, The Flock kept singing, ‘Madison, Madison,’ and every single player came to shake hands, to thank the supporters for never giving up,” she said. “They never gave up on the field, we never gave up in the stands, and this kind of communion – like, they know we gave everything, we know they gave everything, and even though the three points weren’t there, everyone did our best.”
Afterwards, when the high-fives were over and the night looked finished, there was still one more surprise in store for Nathalie. She made her way over to the players’ entrance, looking for goalkeeper Ryan Coulter, whom she had wanted a photo with to show to a friend back home.
When she found him and explained what she was doing, Coulter told her to wait up. He doubled back to the locker room, and a minute later, emerged with a pair of cleats and a Sharpie in hand.
For Nathalie, Coulter’s autographed boots were the icing on the cake, a final present to bring home along with a trove of happy memories. In fact, she said, it was one of the best nights of her life.
Just months ago, Nathalie Durgnat was a disaffected devotee of European soccer, someone who had been through the highs and lows of fandom, but felt it had lost its sense of authenticity. Now, in the calm darkness of a July night in Wisconsin, holding a pair of sweaty shoes in her hands, that old feeling had returned with a kind of intensity she could not have dreamed of.
Nathalie had fallen in love with soccer again.
“It was really amazing,” she said. “I had such a great time and I was with such a great bunch of people, having fun, supporting the team. To me, that’s what soccer is all about.”
Forward Madison FC’s inaugural season is here! The team will play its next home game on July 27 vs Orlando City B. Get tickets to see Forward Madison’s inaugural season at:https://www.forwardmadisonfc.com/tickets.
Forward Madison FC’s inaugural season is here! The team will play its next home game on July 27 vs Orlando City B. Get tickets to see Forward Madison’s inaugural season at:https://www.forwardmadisonfc.com/tickets.
