Knowles: An Elixir For Success
The Rowdies have had a couple of good years lately. What might that be down to? We have had a lot of continuity between some very good players. But, could there be something more?
While the 2020 USL Championship Final may have been cancelled – cutting a shortened season one game shorter – Rowdies fans have had plenty to point to. The team won the Eastern Conference Final away from home against Louisville City, the best team in the east over several prior seasons. This was after they’d beat Charleston, a rival club that had dogged them for many months. They also topped their group against all the clubs geographically near to them. This all happened before COVID spread through the team.
In 2021 a nearly identical Rowdies roster won the regular season on points, topping their division, their conference, and the league overall. In fact, they won enough points to set a record for a season of thirty-two games. While they were unable to win at the final hurdle, the Rowdies did repeat their feat of winning the Eastern Conference Championship, yet again against Louisville City – though under much more dramatic circumstances at home this time around.
Over two COVID-impacted years, another thing has gone viral (if you can excuse a possible disaster of a pun).
An import seems to have caught on at the club with the supporters’ groups – and the memes they create. Is it the Cuban goalkeeper whose brother plays baseball for the Rays? Maybe the two Englishmen who power our midfield? Is it a couple of in-form New Yorkers of South American extraction? Possibly the French center-midfielder who used to room with Karim Benzema? A Zimbabwean who can only score clutch goals (and runs his own charity)?
All those players and more will probably play their role in club lore in the future. What may have the longest lasting place in the fan groups is actually an orange soft drink. It was introduced to Ralph’s Mob and Skyway Casuals, our two supporters’ groups, via the Scottish manager, Neill Collins.
Collins joined the Rowdies in March of 2016 as a player after a long career in Scotland and England. He hung up his boots and was shortly thereafter named head coach. After two years of a relative lack of success, he helped the Rowdies put together what was very nearly a COVID-fairytale following the shutdown with which we are all now too familiar, followed by another season of much playoff success.
Talking to supporters, they would recognize Collins holding a brightly-colored can in his socially-distanced press conferences. Word finally spread from the people on those calls to the fans of what he was drinking: IRN BRU. It’s a Scottish soda with a flavor fans can’t agree on. What they all will swear by now is that the Green and Gold has an orange good luck charm.
Local grocery stores have frequently sold out. Memes have been spread. Braveheart scenes have been spliced with opposing USL clubs’ crests. Central to all these substories is IRN BRU.
I knew this soda from my childhood when my dad would get a bunch of goods from the local British shop for his birthdays. He’s from Dundee, a city on the opposite coast of Scotland from the Rowdies’ manager. I was taken aback to see this drink show up all over my timeline again last year. Upon seeing all the pressers and the references to them, I realized what my fellow Rowdies fans already had: we found an Elixir for Success. Supporters of Tampa Bay need only embrace some bubblegum-flavored – please don’t punch me – honey-colored fizzy, and trophies will follow. We can only say now that that’s been borne out.
Late to re-enter the IRN BRU game, I have had trouble at times finding it in the usual place: the British section at Publix. I had to go straight to a Scottish shop at one point last year to try to find some. When the stock was full, I bought as many as I could. I have since been trying to use our good-luck charm for every game. Half a bottle of soda, a shot of vodka, and some blue curacao will get you the perfect “Green Drink” for one half of play. I’ve found it’s a great way to get you through the whole game.
A quick jaunt into Scottish history will serve us here. The firm which produces IRN BRU, A. G. Barr, was founded in 1875 in Falkirk, Scotland. By 1889, a drink similar to what we know now was being sold in North America. It went by the name IRONBREW, originally manufactured by a chemicals company. This eventually made its way across the pond and Robert Barr and his son, Andrew Greig, started selling the drink in Scotland. They added the “strongman” figure early on and trademarked their specific name in 1946. The divisions of father and son, previously geographically-separated, were merged in 1959 and IRN BRU has thrived all the while.
This drink appears to have mostly died out elsewhere, considering the lack of similar options from more well known companies. However, in Scotland IRN BRU is sometimes called their second drink (behind Scotch whisky) – which may be down to branded advertising. Growing up with a Scottish parent, it was only present in my life when it was actually given as a present. I never remember having much affection for it; but, far be it from me to tell other people what to drink. Here I assumed the only Scottish things I’d inherited from my childhood were a love of the national team and fanship for one of the clubs from Glasgow (We Are The People).
Along came Neill Collins one day, and thus was a whole club from Tampa Bay plunged into orange.
Fans will now show up to tailgates with more than just your stereotypical beers, boozes, and mixers. IRN BRU is an ever-present there, with supporters even taking to online orders because local stores don’t have enough in stock. Friendly arguments take place on Twitter as to what alcohol best mixes with it and what ratios allow for somewhat responsible consumption. I’ve already listed my usual go-tos; but, I have also heard people suggesting whiskey or gin at times. As a person who avoids whiskey, having multiple options isn’t bad because it allows for people with different tastes to join in the fun.
One could always just drink it straight as the soda it is. Perhaps if that were the case, there would be more consensus on what exactly it does taste like. (“It tastes like girders!” my dad will always say in the thickest version of the accent he’s lost over time.) I personally will be searching online for the sugar-free variety before the start of next season. Little did I know there were so many options for the soda itself, as opposed to just what mixed well with it.
Now with another season in the books, the Rowdies have much to look back upon and much to look forward to. Two seasons’ worth of Eastern Conference Championship trophies in our case and a first-rate management team will also excite fans for the upcoming years.
Of course, we all know now what else we can do to beef up our team’s chances beforehand. Any game day good-luck rituals will now have to include IRN BRU. Perhaps the inflated sales in central Florida could attract the parent company to look our way with some promotions. A special can? A partnership with the club maybe? Even if that doesn’t materialize, I can imagine seeing that bright orange liquid flow for some time to come.
You may be Scotland’s second drink; but, like the Rowdies, you’re first tier in our hearts.
