Friends of mine claim to have tailgated, such as it was, at Met Stadium in Bloomington before Vikings games through most of the 70s. The move to the Humpty Dump destroyed this generation, only for it to come roaring back about the time the 1998 Vikings soiled themselves against the Dirty Birds in that NFC Championship game.
The many acres of empty surface lots on that end of downtown Minneapolis helped generate a roaring party scene for Vikings games, with some of that leaching over to the Gopher side by the time I got involved. But by the time the Gophers left the Dump most of the lots had been sold and built up, leaving just a few places for the tailgaters to ply their trade. I don't envy Vikings fans trying to pregame by buying beer from vendors in the square in front of the Viking Ship now. That's not tailgating.
There are a few of us Gopher fans who have been to college games elsewhere, and try to put into practice the whole concept of come early, stay late. Some of you have seen our bucket game. There's a 10x10 now, and we're replacing the grill this year. But we're also about keeping it fairly simple.
