Portland Timbers’ New Mascot Is A Health And Safety Nightmare (Video)
By Chris Wright
The Portland Timbers rolled out their mascot/gimmick, Timber Joey (a fine example of why some European football fans can’t quite take the MLS seriously if ever there was one) during the club’s maiden MLS home game against Chicago Fire t’other day…
Yes, you saw that correctly – Joey is an actual lumberjack, with an actual chainsaw which he actually uses on the touchlines as the game goes on behind him – for you see, every time Portland score, Joey slices a wedge of his giant log and passes it up into the crowd.
Amazing…just…amazing.
For the record, the Timbers won the game 4-2.
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I’m not sure the colonists are really that worried about what the mother countries think of MLS or any leagues in the Americas anymore.
In line 2, are you saying the MLS doesn’t exist? It honestly does.
Timbers Joey has been with the Timbers for at least two years already. Hard to call him “new.” And before that, it was Timber Jim, who was even the mascot in the NASL back in the ’70s. Looks like the only person who “met” him last night was y-o-u, buckaroo.
@Delray and tp: Fair enough my good fellows – I’m blaming a bad source, fatigue to the point nervous exhaustion and a haphazard approach to fact-checking!
Duly amended.
This has been going on since the ’70s in Portland, so it’s not a new mascot/gimmick.
It’s actually pretty awesome. It’s a guy with a huge chainsaw, how is that not cool?
Oh no! Someone tell him to stop sawing off Peter Crouch’s leg!
“Timber Joey” looks like a gay porn star, clearly over compensating with a 7′ chainsaw bar. America just keeps getting gimmick-ier and gimmick-ier.
if this is the product of the “home-grown and organic” “popular movement” of portland timbers, i’m happy to stay in my “corporate” middle-class existence. seattle have a marching band–apparently the butt of a lot of demeaning comments from timbers fans. at least we don’t have Timber Joey. Lord almighty. i’ll take sound wave any day over this piece of shit
We need more attractions like this to draw bigger crowds in the EPL. I’m sick of seeing big grounds like OT empty week after week.
Timber Joey is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Not only is he a fan favorite, he volunteers for charity and exemplifies the Pacific NW. Maybe you should’ve taken a minute to do a litte research on our mascot before making fun of him. To read an accurate report on Timber Joey paste this path into your browser, if you dare…
http://www.portlandtimbers.com/supporters/timber-joey
If it wasn’t for the Timbers, I never would have started watching Portlandia =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVmq9dq6Nsg
…And Kevin is right, we really don’t care about about what Europe thinks of our league anymore.
Something that might be lost by this is the fact that the Timbers Army is easily already one of the best supporters groups in MLS. There’s nothing like them in the states.
Let’s not forget those awesome Premiership mascots:
Man City’s Moonchester
Arsenal’s Goonersaurus
West Ham’s Herbie the Hammer
Everton’s Mr. Toffee
and finally, the most retarded of them all, Fulham’s Terry Bytes – the walking calculator. A guy with a chainsaw isn’t all that bad compared to those, er, things
well while you guys go figure out if you guys can have safe standing.. we’ll be over here standing and chanting and jumping and having oversized flags and drinking in stadium and rev out chainsaws… like americans… :)
I love and respect the Premiere League, but I’m gonna guess Portland’s mascot/gimmick could kick the sheeeet out of any snood-wearing UK football snob. Chris Wright should try being less of a douche.
Timber Joey/Jim as a mascot is probably the oldest relatively-continual soccer tradition in the United States (other than the US Open Cup, for a given definition of “tradition”) so I’m not sure anyone gives a shit what anyone in Seattle or England thinks. They were around before many of you were alive, and CERTAINLY before most Sounders fans even knew there was soccer in Seattle.
Just echoing what some have already said. While I can see how to an outsider this could seem gimmicky, it’s a tradition with history, and was something that began organically, not devised by a marketing department.
And many would say, myself included, that the atmosphere at a Timbers game is better than in the EPL, and it’s leagues like the EPL that continue to get more and more corporate and bland, while MLS is on the opposite trajectory.
What a sad excuse for a lumberjack, might as well have been using a butter knife…
here’s a real lumberjack(on steroids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8jMvGUFCqs
That. is. amazing.
I love America
Damn. I wish that European football fans took MLS seriously. Thank you for your post, Chris Wright.
I will print your article and use it for toilet paper.
Nobody said you had to like him.
The thing is that here in America, we let people have their own opinions.
No matter how wrong they are.
I’m wondering what you would have made of Timber Jim’s antics back in the day– he’d dangle 40 feet from the rafters, using the same equipment he used in his day job to climb poles, and bang a drum. Like so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzcN-jtl2A
@gamblino I hope you’re being ironic, I really do.
@Auguste
Old ≠ good. Por ejemplo: Timber Joey.
Also, you clearly care what England thinks or your Timbers Twitter Army wouldn’t have kept raving about how much like “EPL” the crowd “feels” at Timbers matches.
Would be cool if he was hit by the ball while he was standing there with his chainsaw and dropped it on his leg.
UEFA came out with a whole load of nonsense to stop vuvuzelas taking over, I’d love to hear their excuses for bannning touch-line chainsaws other than “Seriously, this is mental. It makes no sense.”
It’s not in the rulebook because nobody ever thought anyone would be this ridiculous.
Timber Jim is a legend. Timber Joey is a twat who will probably end up losing his job over a DUI.
All right, Soccer Professional, you got ‘em good. You’re absolutely right, Manchester United is a bigger club than Portland Timbers. And that’s the only thing that matters, right? Any fan of any other club is just wasting their time, right? Stupid clubs. Stupid cities. We all agree, you are very, very special.
In the meantime, the folks in the Rose City look like they’re having a pretty good time. I don’t think they particularly care how they rate against Manchester United. But if they did, I think you might be surprised at the relative level of satisfaction in the stands. Sure, there’s 72,000 people in Old Trafford, but they always look a little bored and a little angry and a little, dare I say it, smug to me. The Portland fans were having a blast.
@Fnarf
“Old Trafford…and a little, dare I say it, smug…”
Hey, hey, hey…. nobody is going to out smug Portland. Don’t even go there.
Hey Sounders how does it feel to have your two years of being the number 1 supported team in the league wiped out in two hours of epic madness?
Because of the history behind the position of Joey, the fans have a strong attachment to him. This isn’t as much gimmicky as it is tradition. After all, you wouldn’t call Liverpools “You’ll never walk alone” chant gimmicky just because it sells merchandise, it’s because the fans have an attachment to it.
Hey, Jonathan, we’ll start feeling bad when you start drawing 36,000 for every game. Oh, wait, you can’t, you only hold 22,000.
I hope he saws a fucking euro-douche in half and then throws the scrawny, smug, limp-dicked bits of euro-cunt into a Port-a-potty. Now THAT would be entertaining.
@fnarf: I believe Soccer Professional was being somewhat sarcastic, or what I’m told is called “cheeky” over on that side of the “pond”. Guess you like taking things personal…
Only in America…. /facepalm
What surprises me the most is that people actually watch MLS games.
I love the fact that Timbers fans think their club is the best supported in the MLS because the cameras were perpetually trained on the Timbers Army. Whenever it panned around or you could see the stands from the regular angle all I saw was a bunch mildly entertained, smug Portlanders. Not so for the Sounders. The camera crew could pick any angle at a home game and capture the true best fans in the MLS.
And congratulations to the referee for not catching Cooper’s blatant handball on the fourth goal
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150272027459447&oid=182844932235&comments
this is probably a better representation of the game…
Chris Wright, who the fuck cares. Other than you obviously.
@griff – watch the replay, the keepers hand swept the ball away before it hit coopers hand…I thought it was a handball on first viewing too but then went back to watch it…it is particularly obvious in slow-mo…
I just can’t wait until we pass you in points tomorrow with one fewer games played!
Oh yeah, while I agree Timber Joey is a Health and Safety hazard, I love the tradition, would not trade it in for the world….
By all accounts the players love and cherish their log ends as players that score the goals are presented them at the end of the match (an additional end is cut for the goalie for a shut out as well).
Must hand it Pies, this is a fun, silly article with plenty of sarcasm, and then a plethora of americans turn up on this site and start talking about:
Colonialism
Freedom of Speech
How completely unoffended they are by this article and how it bothered them so little they just had to comment on it.
One of the most bizarre comments about this article tries to make english fans feel demeaned by claiming we can’t ‘stand at matches’ whilst you can in america. Clearly this person has never seen an EPL game.
The American game continues to get better and get great attendances. In a country where the soccer isn’t one of the main professional sports, this is an incredible thing.
@pdxbuckeye
it takes talent to support both portland and osu. it’s like being a nazi and a soviet. i’m not sure how you’ve done it, but you compiled the two most putrid things together, and came up with something that’s even more heinous than the two things on their own.
btw, “with one fewer games played” has some serious issues. that must be the type of grammar they teach buckeyes.
hate to be beating the dead horse…
but the timbers mascot has predated most, if not all of the EPL ones.
their old mascot (this guy’s only been around for a few years) existed:
- before the modern premier league
- before the big 4
- before rooney/ronaldo/zidane
so if anyone wants to take a jab at north american footy because of this guy, you’re about 40 years too late. enjoy your euro-snobbery. lord knows there’s no lack of people who adopt teams that aren’t anywhere close to them only to turn around and piss on their own domestic league.
lol look at all the people going NUTS about this post, its a lumberjack, thats funny but it doesnt constitute people to attack chris like he ran over their dog