Fans arrived early Monday morning, Boxing Day, to watch Premier League soccer matches at The Brass Pig in downtown Bloomington.
D. Jack Alkire
BLOOMINGTON — What’s the best way to ensure you’re never alone for early-morning international soccer games?
At least, that’s what John Solberg says is the reason for opening The Brass Pig on Main Street in Bloomington in May 2020.
He said he needed more company to watch the live European Premier League games on weekends.
“I’m still waking up at 6 or 7 in the morning,” Solberg said. “I’ve got my son there. I’m drinking a Guinness. I’m like, ‘This just feels depressing right now. It’s just me drinking at 7 in the morning. It looks like we’ve got to open up a bar so we can do it there!'”
John Solberg, co-owner of The Brass Pig in downtown Bloomington, talks to a customer early Monday morning.
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The 37-year-old said he likes to joke that that was the only motivation for starting the barbecue joint. In reality, he said, it was a business venture between Solberg, his father-in-law Johnny van Bragt, and his friend Tyler Holloway, owner of Maggie Miley’s Irish pub in uptown Normal.
Still, the soccer presence at The Brass Pig is a strong one.
They opened at 8:30 a.m. Monday for fans to watch the Premier League Boxing Day matches. By 11 a.m. they already had a steady crowd.
“It’s pretty fun when you show up here at 6:30 in the morning,” Solberg said, “and you’ve got like 15 to 20 people to watch soccer with you.”
Mark Killick shouts at the TV Monday morning during Premier League matches on Boxing Day at The Brass Pig in downtown Bloomington.
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Solberg grew up in Bloomington-Normal and played soccer his whole life. He said he even got to play internationally when he was in high school.
He said soccer fanaticism is different, much more potent, overseas than it is in America.
“People spend their whole week waiting to go watch that match,” he said Monday. “Your entire mood is changed up and down, depending on what goes on in that game.”
Mark Killick grew up in the United Kingdom and moved to the United States when he started high school. He explained what the scene might look like if Bloomington-Normal had European-style “football clubs.”
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“There’s plenty of them at a very local level, too,” he said. “You’d have a team in Bloomington. At least one, maybe two. You’d have a team in Normal. They’d have their own grounds, you know, a little club zone.”
Killick said these club zones double as micro-economies. “All these clubs in England and small local levels have bars and clubhouses where people go. And it generates revenue. It brings community,” he said. “It’s kind of self-sustaining in that sense.”
As to why soccer is not as big in the U.S., both Killick and Solberg agree.
John Solberg’s friend, Adam Elpayaa, bought him an Arsenal shirt on Monday and framed the photo. Solberg does not like Arsenal.
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“It’s expensive to play here,” Solberg said. He grew up playing for a traveling team upstate. “I mean, I was three, four days a week driving to Chicago from here.”
Killick said that, in Europe, “(Soccer) is more accessible. There’s better public transportation. There’s less distance involved. There’s less cost involved overall.”
In contrast to the equipment kids might need for baseball or football, soccer basically just needs a ball and space, Killick said.
“You can just get two shirts, put them on either side of each other and create a goal on the street, and play relatively inexpensively.”
And yet, slowly, the soccer community is growing.
The Brass Pig is an official bar of the local chapter for American Outlaws, a fan club for both women’s and men’s U.S. soccer teams.
Solberg said his bar was packed during the World Cup games this year, so much so that he had to turn people away.
Mark Killick and Eric Vogel, center, make a “no goal” gesture Monday afternoon during Arsenal’s Premier League match on Boxing Day at The Brass Pig in downtown Bloomington.
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Killick said the growth in local soccer fandom is refreshing. “I mean, in a community like this where, you wouldn’t expect that, especially 20 years ago,” he said, “It’s been amazing.”
Killick said, “The soccer community is, in any city I’ve lived in, always a really great group to be a part of.”
Casie Golliday said she knew nothing about soccer before tending bar at The Brass Pig.
“I have learned so much,” she said. “It’s so much better than (American) football.”
“I knew there was going to be a lot of people in town,” she added. “We already have our soccer regulars, so I figure, if their family was going to be in town, it would be busy.
“And it just —” she paused to look around the bar — “It’s just so cool. It’s awesome here. I love it.”
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Contact D. Jack Alkire at (309)820-3275.
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