The Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank was transformed into the “Jersey Shore’s largest World Cup party” when the U.S. men’s team battled Belgium last week.
While the final outcome may have been disappointing for many guests, they were able to celebrate the USA’s impressive run with a bang. Projected on the theater’s 700- square-foot silver screen, the July 1 game was presented to fans as a grand cinematic experience, with guests cheering, screaming, chanting, jumping and groaning alongside hundreds of like-minded spectators.
For the occasion, the theater upgraded to high-definition by having a 150-foot cable shipped overnight.
Jonathan Vena, the theater’s director of marketing and public relations, said soccer is the type of sport that brings the community together. Regardless of whether they were cheering for the U.S. or Belgium, fans of all kinds were encouraged to attend the free party and enjoy the game together.
“We’re nondenominational here,” Vena said. “We just want people to have a good time.”
Explaining why the theater strayed from its usual arts-based entertainment in favor of sports, Vena said, “We’re a community theater. This is a national community event.”
The community responded favorably. Even soccer fanatics like Hazlet resident Julie Harnett, who played the sport as a young girl and follows it closely with her family, chose the Count Basie as her viewing location, thinking it would be “a fun crowd” with which to watch the game. “I feel a little less crazy yelling at the TV if other people are around me, too,” she said.
Luckily for Harnett, she didn’t need to play hooky to attend the party. She works at a school and was finished with her workday at 2 p.m., leaving her with plenty of time before the game began at 4 p.m.
Attendees at the Count Basie Theatre show their patriotism during the July 1 broadcast of the World Cup match between the USA and Belgium. Other attendees, like Middletown resident Conner Spreen, arranged to take the day off. He and friends Jeremy Concepcion and Tom Ferry were decked out in patriotic gear, with Concepcion donning a star-spangled bandanna.
Eatontown resident Moe Keane was another attendee who had to ask her boss for permission to attend, and she did so without being much of a soccer enthusiast.
“To be honest, I usually never watch. But we’ve got a ref from New Jersey … how could you not watch,” she said, referring to referee Mark Geiger, a Beachwood resident and former math teacher at Lacey Township High School in Lanoka Harbor.
Also, the U.S. team’s star goalie, Tim Howard, was born in North Brunswick.
Keane expressed joy that she didn’t “just have U.S. pride, but New Jersey pride.”
Ocean Grove resident John Brennan attended with his son, Paddy, and poetically summarized the appeal of the event.
“Soccer lends itself to the emotional peaks and valleys of an audience,” Brennan said. “When you’re watching it, you can literally feel the tugs of the momentum … there’s no other sport in the world like soccer. It’s the greatest spectator sport. All you’ve got to do is look at the audience.”