Maybe it's just that people outside of Buffalo don't understand the fierce fanhood of Bills Mafia. Much like Alyssa O'Reilly, who got into trouble with a Texas homeowners association for her Diggs/Allen yard signs, Ryan Somerville of Charlotte, N.C., is waging a neighborhood battle equal parts inane and amusing, especially in the eyes of Bills fans.
Somerville, a 2014 SUNY Buffalo State graduate who moved to Charlotte two years ago, explains the trouble caused by featuring a broken table – the product of the now-famed table jumping of Bills fans during pregame tailgating – as a yard decoration.
We'll let Somerville explain the saga; the interview is lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
By Ryan Somerville:
Around the start of football season, I wanted to embrace being a new homeowner and show my fandom by placing a Bills flag out in front of the house against my girlfriend's best wishes. But it wasn’t until a neighbor asked about the Bills Mafia that I realized this was my opportunity to bring the Bills Mafia to Magnolia Park – and the rest was history.
A warning note on Ryan Somerville's door to remove the broken table from his front yard in Charlotte, N.C.
It’s been two months since the table has been put up and appropriately blessed; the compliments I’ve received on my "broken table decoration" from neighbors and sporadic "Go, Bills!" from passing cars have not gone unnoticed by my homeowner's association.
People in the neighborhood have definitely caught wind of this and have rooted me on, but it has come with a fair share of pushback.
To my understanding, the HOA has made this table the subject of an upcoming board meeting Thursday evening, and I may be facing fines of up to $100-$120 a month until the table is removed.
I just find it really odd that people can decorate their homes for Halloween with skeletons in their bushes, have 12-foot-tall monsters on their lawns, put wagon wheel decorations from Hobby Lobby to accompany the DIY "welcome" signs on their porches they found on Pinterest. The funniest part is that the letter recognizes it as a decoration. ...
It wasn’t until a formal email that I decided I’d have some fun with it and share my story on Twitter, and the Bills community did not disappoint.
Letter from my HOA demanding I remove my “broken table decoration”Tables staying.. Go Bills@BuffaloBills @BrotherBill716 @tailgate_beers #BillsMafia #Bills pic.twitter.com/sQQpK8yW2C
— R. James (@rysomerville1) November 5, 2021
I’ve had fans all over the country show me their support, lawyers who have literally volunteered to take my case if I wanted to take it to court, some fans have even offered to contribute to a GoFundMe to pay the fines. It’s incredible and my phone has been pinging nonstop for days since my tweet. But I will say now that it would be kind of a cool idea to contribute any excess funds to the Patricia Allen Fund (at Oishei Children's Hospital) if it got to that point.
Bottom line is I’m not above standing my ground with an HOA because I know it’s a battle seldom ever won. But I love the Bills and I love the happiness and togetherness they bring to their fans each and every week. So if it means not being able to travel to a game or stop by the tavern on the tracks and being forced to watch the games from my couch to afford the fine, it’s money well spent.
I want put a positive spin on this at the end of the day and bring light to a good cause and a few laughs. Because that’s what Mafia is: it’s family.
