The Sons of Ben, or SoBs as they sometimes call themselves, are not your regular Philly sports fans.
The SoBs cheer for a team that does not exist.
Nevertheless, they say they have 650 loyal members, an official Web site, chat groups, a cool logo for T-shirts and hats, regular social events, their own Saturday amateur team, and a season ticket drive - for when they do get a team.
Theirs is a sport that has struggled to enter the American pro sports psyche for years.
Soccer.
Now a Major League Soccer franchise may be coming to Philadelphia, and if it gets here, it will find a fan club already waiting with the kind of fans who fill a bus and drive to New York for a league game and boo both sides.
Practice, say the Sons of Ben.
"We can be rowdy and loud, but we don't have to be obnoxious," said Catherine Kulp, 44, of Jeffersonville, a longtime soccer player, soccer fan, soccer coach and soccer mom.
They are young professionals, retirees, families, soccer players of all ages, people who never played soccer, white collar and blue collar.
As it says on their T-shirt: "We're kind of a big deal."
Major League Soccer likes their enthusiasm.
"If that is a small sample of what we could experience in Philadelphia, that is a tremendous recipe for success," spokesman Dan Courtemanche said.
The club is a hometown original - not the invention of the league or the investors planning for a $300 million soccer and retail development in Chester.
"It has really kind of grown into its own thing," said founding member Bryan James, 34, a financial analyst from Wilmington.
James said the club formed last year when there were rumors of a pro team opening shop. Nothing came of it, but the nucleus of fans decided to keep the momentum going.
They began recruiting more members and even launched a petition drive to get state funding for a stadium.
"We the (Soccer) People, in order to form a more perfect sports world, . . ." it says above the 2,800 signatures that have been collected online from across the county. Paper petitions are circulating.
With 13 teams in the United States and Canada, Major League Soccer wants to add two new franchises by the end of the year. The teams would begin play by 2009 or 2010.
The Philadelphia area is one of at least nine making a pitch for a team.
