One of the game day traditions for TFC fans that stand in the south end of the stadium most games is to march to the ground together, singing, chanting and waving our flags en masse. Some games it happens, some it does not. But when rivals like Montréal come to town it is a guarantee that it’ll happen.

And so it did. After congregating at the south end of the GO Train tunnel the groups started heading towards the south end of the stadium. The Impact supporters, such as they were (probably 50 in number), were congregated in the away fans area of section 104, in the northeast corner of the stadium. We had to march by them and they were anywhere from 70-80 feet above us as we marched by below.

The Impact fans upgraded their signage this year from a garbage bag in 2009 to a sheet in 2010 with a witty message on it… “Toronto Failure Club”. At least that was a bit of a step up from last year.

Any time these groups get within any proximity of one another there is always taunting and cat calling back and forth. It is the same when the Leafs and Habs play. It gets off colour and it gets mean but that is usually as far as it goes. Last night a few select Impact fans crossed the line in my book.

They spit on us.

A number of Impact supporters proceeded to spit upon us from above as we marched by on our way into the stadium.  It was gross, cowardly and disrespectful.

Not everybody was doing it. Nor should everyone in that group be tarred with the same brush, but when identifiable members of a recognized supporter group do this sort of thing the onus is on the group itself  to police its members and haul them back from crossing the line. That did not take place.

On the pitch the classy behaviour continued. A sucker punch, reckless tackles, and a TFC player getting a leg laceration to the bone for 22 stitches was all that the Impact could muster.  And incredibly their coach stated post game that TFC was getting favourable calls from the officials simply because they were in MLS and the Impact were not. I hope he looks at the game again on video and counts how many more cards TFC got than Montreal and of course the sucker punch on Garcia.

I will be posting a video blog later this evening with my comments on the game itself in more detail, but I did want to show Chad Barrett’s wonderful effort and excellent finish that saw TFC salt away the win and start their defence of the Voyageurs Cup with three points at home.

After being spit on I will let Barrett’s goal stand as my reply.

Stay classy mon petit freres.