FBM Founding Father - Rodney Marsh

It's important to remember that all revolutionary movements are built upon the work of visionaries before their own times. For Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and the rest of the colonial propagandists during America's War for Independence they could look to philosopher John Locke and other Enlightenment writers.

The Free Beer Movement is quite the same. The idea of the FBM didn't start with us (credit where credit is due) and it's a cold hard fact that beer and soccer were lovely bedfellows many moons ago.

Think Frankie Hejduk was the first ever to drink a beer with fans? Thought Clint Dempesy's commercial (and accompanying web game) with Cerveza Modelo was groundbreaking? While the Free Beer Movement is certainly impressed with the beer and soccer combos of today, Deuce is not the first to break the beer-barrier nor is our honorary FBM spokesperson the first to slam suds with supporters (say that three times fast).

Set the way-back machine to 1980 and meet Rodney March. He was a striker for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the original North American Soccer League and although Marsh is an Englishman we're taking him as one of our own. During the heyday of NASL he made over 100 appearances (from 1976-79... with a brief return to England and Fulham) for the Rowdies and scored 53 goals.

But what makes Marsh stand out in our mind is this spot for Miller Lite. It's all thing terrible (much like the Dempsey spot), but we're not going to spit at a commercial crossing beer and soccer. Here we've got fossilized (aka YouTube archives) evidence of beer and soccer history.

Drink in its glory:



There you have it, folks, FBM history unearthed. A FBM Founding Father.

More to come....


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Adventures in Modelo Especial's Shootout With Clint Dempsey

We stumbled across this beer and American soccer marketing gem and couldn't resist having a little fun with it. Found while reading SI.com a banner ad caught our eye, "Modelo Especial Shootout with Clint Dempsey."

Hey! We love beer! We love the Deuce! First though was... do you think the Dempsey used to sling back Modelos with his bros in Nacogdoches?

Even if he didn't we're willing to bet that his sister wedding last weekend was fully stocked by Modelo.

On to the game!

Dempsey appears on screen with a funky beat (and some sweet threads... think that's DryFit?) that will quickly get tiring (particularly as he starts kicking our ass). We'd like to imagine that Deuce approved the beat with the marketing guys.

Demps: "Yeah that's dope!" He starts a little free-styling and it quickly gets awkward among the all-white, 50+ group of men in the boardroom.

Clint welcomes us to the "Modelo Especial Shootout". Thanks Clint!

Things immediately take a turn South when Dempsey wastes no time in throwing down the challenge, "Think you have what it takes?"

Adding a wink to make it extra intimidating. 

Now we're questioning our abilities, but we'll keep positive.

We enter the arena.... which arena we're not sure. Either way we're happy that Modelo has secure real grass and apparently lure 60,000 for this marquee match up.

Bam! Game on. We're ready to show Dempsey that this will be just like shooting on pal Tim Howard, but we'd better read up on "How To Play" first. Click.... nothing! Oh nos! Oh well... how hard could this be?

Before you know it... Deuce has shed all those shanks from the Guadeloupe match and we're looking more like Robert Green.

You'd think that Dempsey would be all Southern Gentleman about it, but he just keeps pouring on the pain. Words hurt!

"You don't look so good? You feeling OK?" he taunts us each time he lashes in a free kick. Each goal punctuated with his trademark kiss and point to the sky.

He is unstoppable.

"Seriously? You can't even get one? You gonna go home with a goose egg?" he pours on the hate. There's that wink again!

Please Clint... we're embarrassed enough.

But know we're not going home with a goose egg. Let's do this.

(Cue whole day wasted)

Give it a shot yourself.


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