On Monday, amidst the bright daylight of their eagerly anticipated US tour, the British rock band Sports Team encountered a harrowing ordeal when they were robbed at gunpoint in California. The quintet, comprising frontman Alex Rice, guitar virtuosos Rob Knaggs and Henry Young, bass master Oli Dewdney, drumming sensation Al Greenwood, and keyboard wizard Ben Mack, had just landed in the Golden State, poised for their debut gig in Sacramento the following day.
Their journey took a sudden and sinister turn when, after pulling over at a Starbucks in Vallejo—nearly an hour's drive from their concert venue—their van was viciously ransacked by a gang of armed thieves at 9 a.m. "Robbed at gunpoint just ten minutes into our US tour," the London-hailing rockers lamented in an Instagram post the next day, their shock palpable.
The band's tour manager, displaying remarkable courage, confronted one of the assailants, who retaliated by brandishing a firearm, as captured in harrowing footage filmed from inside the nearby gas station. "A man rushed in, shouting that guys were breaking into a van," they recounted, accompanying their words with video evidence of the heinous crime. "We ran out to intervene and found masked figures pillaging our van."
Local law enforcement advised the "Here's the Thing" hit-makers to file an online police report, as they grappled with the material losses and a shattered passenger window. Rice revealed to Sky News that the audacious thieves made off with their laptops, in-ear monitors, cameras, and other personal belongings.
Fortunately, Sports Team's instruments remained unscathed, allowing them to proceed with their evening performance at the Goldfield Trading Post in Sacramento. "They might have taken our Nintendo Switches, but they can never steal our ability to belt out rock tunes about highways," they joked, intertwining levity with the gravity of their experience. "In all honesty, it was startling how nonchalantly everyone seemed to accept it. 'It happens,' they shrugged."
Hours later, reflecting on the incident, the band's drummer recounted the chaos: "Everyone bolted out, screaming," Greenwood told BBC News. "Someone came up to us, asking if anyone owned a white Sprinter van, warning us that we were being robbed. Lauren, our tour manager, was slightly ahead of me, and another person sprinted past us in the opposite direction, cautioning, 'Watch out, he's got something!'"
"I genuinely feared I was about to witness a shooting, as it took our tour manager a moment to realize the danger. You can hear me screaming at her to get down in the video," Greenwood added.
Renowned for their tracks "M5," "The Drop," and "Here's the Thing," Sports Team was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2020—a prestigious annual award celebrating the finest music albums from the UK and Ireland. Their debut album, "Deep Down Happy," soared to the second spot on the UK Albums Chart, paving the way for their 2022 release "Gulp!" which charted in the top three.
