In the Middle of Eagles Territory, an Oasis for Chiefs Fans

Anthony Scola, 62, a retired carpenter, built the bench outside the saloon.

“The atmosphere in this bar when the Chiefs play, you don’t care about the Eagles anymore,” Scola said. “I might wear green underwear, but I’m watching Kansas City.”

Tickets will be required to enter Big Charlie’s on Super Bowl Sunday. The vast majority will go to regular customers. Kansas City fans. There could be a sprinkling of Eagles fans, friends from the neighborhood, but no one is expected to show disrespect by wearing visible Eagles’ colors.

Some patrons will surely feel conflicting allegiances.

“I am the biggest Eagles fan around, but this is my family,” Patrick Newcomb, 55, said of his bar mates, reciting the lyrics of that noted football ballad from 1976 by Mary MacGregor: “Torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool, loving both of you is breaking all the rules.’’

Others will have no tortured loyalties. Alessi, a Kansas City fan for 30 years, said he did not attend the Eagles’ victory parade after their 2018 Super Bowl win over New England. His wife and daughter went, he said with a laugh, and “they almost had to call a locksmith to get back in my house.”

In the two-week lead-up to this Super Bowl, Alessi added, “We’re not talking.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/sports/football/chiefs-bar-big-charlies-philadelphia.html