Remember this: try
Heads up that this post is from Tyler not Tyson. It’s like being at a restaurant and ordering a Coke and the waitress says sorry is Pepsi ok and you say yeah sure but deep down you’re pretty disappointed. Anyhow, thanks for reading.
Last month I found myself in Daly’s Pub in Astoria to catch the Liverpool-Leeds match. There was our crew of old college friends and a mix of Scouse and Irish regulars. Sunlight streamed through the narrow front windows. There was a huge Erin Go Bragh tapestry on the back wall. A good scene.
At halftime, I was explaining to my friends what made the 2025 Vermont Green season so special. I mean, beyond the obvious fact that we won it all (casually taps gold star above the VGFC crest). It was a massive year in so many ways - a longer season, more games for our women’s team, bigger crowds, louder chants, larger tifos, more Bernie appearances, etc. All these things contributed to the vibes but I realized that this season (much like the first season) was much about what was happening off the field as what happened on it.
As has been widely discussed, Vermont Green’s inaugural season coincided with a surge of post-covid energy. Around the country there was buzz, a real desire to go out and reconnect - get together, see people, make new friends etc. Relearn how to socialize and chat with your coworkers or order a coffee without sounding like a shipwrecked lunatic returning to the mainland. After being isolated and separated, we found newfound value and importance in groups and gatherings. Oh, a new local football club? Yes please. Vermont Green came along at just the right time.
This year people felt compelled to come together for a different reason. Namely, we’re living in a time of unprecedented artifice, stuck in a timeline in which fake is sold as real and lies are traded as truth.
People want reality - with all its weird imperfections and oddities - because it beats the garbage simulacrum that is 2025.
We want actual humanity and actual humans. Realness amidst a metaverse of dead pixels and bot-filled platforms, a ghost market of made-up coins, a world in which an overhyped technology creating unwanted flood of soulless slop.
Realness in defiance of a post-truth administration run by incompetent fabricators. Constantly being told that what we see isn’t real. The heavily-armed goons kidnapping your friends and neighbors aren’t violating any laws or rights. The babbling president isn’t a sundowning corrupt racist grifter. The brain-wormed conspiracy theorist knows more about healthcare than thousands of doctors with decades of science and medicine. Our money and weaponry aren’t being shipped abroad for indiscriminate violence. The millions of civilians (bombed and displaced and terrified) aren’t victims.
You know the situation. The darkest timeline and such.
Anyhow, I think we’re all looking for a way to plug in to something tangible and true. Something rooted in community and genuine human connection. To look out for each other, to support those who need it most Make our voices heard in words, banners, and actions. To feel like we’re doing something, even just locally.
And look, being in the stands at Virtue is as real as it gets. You see you humanity writ large, in waving arms and raspy voices and packed-in sweaty bodies. Every match is a chance to reaffirm your reality and your sanity and say I am here and I am not alone.
Shit is bleak the odds seem long but it doesn’t mean we give up. If anything it means fight harder. That was kind of the story of our season, right? Down 2-0 in the 90th min away at Lusitano, soaking wet from the rain delay, surrounded by feral Western MA youth teams. Down 1-0 to Hudson Hammers. Down 2-0 vs Motown FC. Down 1-0 vs Lionsbridge. That was Vermont Green FC and that is the state of Vermont and that can be this country.
Football doesn’t solve problems but it brings people together, whether it’s in a 2,500 college stadium or a a few dozen in a small corner pub. You might enter as strangers but will leave as friends. Football can’t help but create community. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.
As 2025 winds down, we want to say thank you to everyone who made this season and this community truly special. The players, coaches, staff, and partners. Supporters here in Vermont and all around the world. We’re in this together. Onward to 2026. UTFG