Out here doing unofficial awards now.
Typically, the Nashville Soccer Supporters Trust names a “fan of the match” for Nashville SC home games. However, that may be a little unfair to one of the club’s most dedicated fans: plenty of his most fervent support comes on the road.
Clay Trainum, a member of the NSST Executive Board, traveled over 1,700 miles to Montclair, N.J. last weekend to see his Boys in Gold take on New York Red Bulls II. The only fan to travel from Middle Tennessee to the match, Trainum fortunately found some local representation of the NSC fanbase in Northern New Jersey. Nonetheless, the Nashville supporters’ end was one man strong through much of the match.
It was one supporter that the players (and his fellow fans watching on TV) are used to seeing, though. Trainum traveled over 6,000 miles to support Nashville home and away last season. He even received a souvenir early in the process: the game ball that scored Nashville SC’s first-ever goal, a penalty kick slotted home by former striker Michael Cox at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa.
Trainum’s road warrior mentality doesn’t show any signs of stopping, either, with plans already in the works to see NSC in Charleston, S.C. when they take on the Battery – the next road game on U.S. soil after a trip to Ottawa, Ontario.
An Evansville, Ind. native who lives in Murfreesboro and works at Middle Tennessee State University, there’s no doubting that Trainum deserves his reputation as one of Nashville SC’s most dedicated fans.
