By all accounts, Saturday was a very good day for the Jacksonville Armada FC. The first-year NASL side got to play their first ever league match at home and started setting records before the first kick ever took place.
The official attendance was 16,164, close to double the capacity of their normal home field at the home of the Jacksonville Suns, an AA baseball team. This set a league attendance record, and this on a weekend that saw attendance at all NASL game break an attendance record with more than 44,000 fans at five matches.
Adding to the impressiveness of this feat was the day’s weather forecast. Earlier in the day Weather.com had predicted thunderstorms starting around the same time as kickoff, and less than two hours before the game fans were treated to sporadic sprinkles at their tailgates and an Ominously darkening sky on the horizon.
Despite the hints of weather still to come, the first half was largely dry and the Armada continued to set records on the day as they scored only 12 seconds into the match as Jemal Johnson took a shot on goal from 30 yards out and an out-of-position Matt VanOekel just couldn’t get to it in goal for FC Edmonton.
Jacksonville would continue to dominate possession, ending the half with 74 percent possession, and score twice more before the half gave Edmonton a chance to regroup.
The second half saw the arrival of the downpour that had been threatening all evening and while many fans retreated into more sheltered areas of the stadium, a surprising number stayed in their seats, and the Section 904, which had been the most visible supporters group all night, only got louder as the rain came down harder.
As for the Armada, they dropped into a more defensive mindset with their 3-goal lead and while Edmonton finally got a goal of their own in the 52nd minute, the Jacksonville lead never seemed to be in any real danger.
This is a very auspicious start for the fledgling team. Jacksonville isn’t the largest city in the league (unless you’re counting acres instead of people) and the NFL’s Jaguars notoriously struggle to fill their stadium, and yet this team managed to break an attendance record their first time out. The initial strike 12 seconds into the match could have been a fluke, but 74 percent possession and two more goals in the first half didn’t seem to be lucky breaks. The Armada could very well have been making a statement Saturday that they’ll be joining the likes of San Antonio and Minnesota at the top of the table without some of the growing pains usually expected for an expansion team.
Fans of the Armada should have left Saturday’s match with reason to have high hopes for more reasons than just the quality of play on the field. The front office seems to be determined to make the Armada an attraction in Jacksonville on par with more established sporting events. From the fan festival before the gates opened, to the half-time fireworks show that was a little larger than I had expected, the team went out of their way to make this seem like a big deal.
Of course, that route comes with the potential for financial disaster, but if the Armada keep playing the way they played Edmonton, the fans should keep showing up.
