Chansky's Notebook: Elegant Evening

Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

It was a spectacle, for sure, if not much of a match.

Despite the one-sided 5-0 victory for Chelsea over Wrexham, the first pro soccer match ever played in Chapel Hill was a sight to behold. It was a major accomplishment for all involved, even though the two teams were literally not in the same league.

Those 50,000 or so fans who showed up were stunned by the beauty and majesty of the new soccer grass field laid down over the hybrid turf at Kenan Stadium. Although Carolina’s soccer teams won’t get to play or practice on the pristine carpet, UNC hopes to reuse some of it on other athletic fields.

The $350,000 grass, a condition of the game coming here because professional soccer players refuse to play on artificial turf, fit so perfectly at Kenan that organizers will surely look to bring another game here in the future. The dimensions of a soccer field are 125 yards long by 75 yards wide, compared to the 120 X 53 of a football field. The wide expanse, along with a clock that keeps running for 90 minutes, shows the incredible conditioning that soccer players achieve. American football is a start-and-stop game all the way.

The start was scheduled for 7:30 but did not kick off until 8, just as the sun was setting over the Bell Tower, creating a great climate for any outdoor event even though the temperature remained muggy (torrid in bathrooms!).

Kenan came to life less than three minutes into the game when Chelsea’s Ian Maatsen scored on a beautiful feed from the goal mouth by Nicholas Jackson. When Maatsen scored again late in the first half to put the game out of reach, some may have wondered if the OTHER Matson – Erin, Carolina’s field hockey star and new coach – was in the house. She rarely misses something this big.

Wrexham is moving up in European soccer but not in the Premier League, where Chelsea plays. Both teams had plenty of fans, and Wrexham’s biggest cheer came when one of its players performed a bicycle kick, jumping and falling on his back as he kicked the ball over his head goalward. Cool move.

The pitch also featured three-sided field-level digital boards flashing advertising all evening. The most eye-catching was Betty Booze, which turns out to be the new liquor line owned by actress Blake Lively, who owns the team with her husband and fellow actor Ryan Reynolds.

Adidas was on the boards with only its logo, but Nike one-upped its competitor with a series of lioness slogans, appealing directly to women. Surely, Lively liked that!

Featured image via Associated Press/Karl B DeBlaker

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Chansky’s Notebook: Elegant Evening

On Air Now: 97.9 FM