Scoreboard Sports Lounge to close

Heads were hanging in Scoreboard Sports Lounge during the first half of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals contest on June 12. Not only were the patrons, many clad in green jerseys, watching their favorite team get crushed at the hands of a bitter rival, but they were less than a week away from losing their favorite sports bar.
The Lakers started Game 4 by building the biggest first-quarter lead in Finals history, leading by as much as 24 points before halftime. They still led by 20 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Then the tide turned, and so did the spirits at Scoreboard. As the Celtics came surging back to life, heads raised and eyes widened. The Celtics pulled within two points before the end of the third quarter, outscoring the Lakers 31-15. When James Posey hit a three-pointer in the fourth, putting the Celtics up by five with just over a minute left in the game, fists were flying in Scoreboard. For the first time, it appeared the team in green would actually pull it off.
The Celtics wound up winning 97-91, taking a 3-1 lead in the series. But will Scoreboard pull off a similar comeback? Owner Jeff Goss failed to reach a lease agreement with the owner of their building on Lafayette Road and decided to close the bar’s doors for good at the end of the championship series. He’s now exploring a couple of other locations in Portsmouth with the hope of reestablishing his business elsewhere.

But many customers are disheartened by the loss.

“If you’ve ever seen Cheers, that’s what this place is like to me,” said Pat Glennon, of Portsmouth. “This is my favorite place. This is the best sports bar in Portsmouth.”

A diehard Celtics fan, Glennon has lived in Portsmouth for three years and has been visiting Scoreboard regularly for about a year. Asked how he felt about the bar closing, he said he was “wicked bummed.” His fellow patrons felt the same way.

“It really is our Cheers,” said Trevor Herrinng, also of Portsmouth. “We know the bar staff, we know the owner. It’s a fun place.”

“It’s a very laid-back atmosphere,” added Mike Brodeur, of Dover.

The wait staff feels similarly. Waitress Marion Dorr has worked at Scoreboard for nine years and knows almost every customer by name. When Goss announced that he was closing the bar, she broke down.

“I’ve cried,” she said, getting a little teary-eyed just talking about it. “This is like my hangout. I’ve been coming here like 11 years as a customer. There’s no other place in Portsmouth like it.”

What makes Scoreboard so special? For many, the lounge’s unpretentious atmosphere is refreshing in a town full of ritzy bars. No one comes into Scoreboard wearing a tie and orders a martini, Goss said. But whole teams of people come in wearing shorts and dirty softball jerseys, popping in for a brew after an afternoon game.

Goss has lived his entire life in Portsmouth. The 42-year-old played several sports for Portsmouth High School, including baseball, football and hockey. He has since coached various sports in town and was a junior high football coach for seven years. When he took ownership of Scoreboard almost 10 years ago, he wanted to make it a place for the locals.

“When I took over, my first goal was to make it a true sports bar,” he said.

Scoreboard originally opened in the late 1970s. There were only about a dozen TVs in the bar when Goss took over, but he quickly added about 70 more. Patrons have witnessed some glorious moments in New England sports history on those 80 TVs, including three Patriots Super Bowls, two Red Sox World Series and, now, a Celtics championship series. 

“In the last 10 years, we’ve been able to watch some of the most incredible sporting events anybody could see in their life,” Goss said.

Goss and his customers have also reveled in local victories. When the Portsmouth Little League All Star Team returned from the Little League World Series in August 2006, the team celebrated its triumphant run with a gathering in front of Scoreboard, during which Goss called the young players heroes.

Goss sees the closing of Scoreboard as yet another sign of Portsmouth’s changing attitude. The city used to be a lot tougher, he said, and blue-collar joints like Scoreboard once thrived. He sees city officials paying more attention to tourists than locals, noting that while more people seem to be visiting Portsmouth, fewer people he knows actually live in the city.
“Everything about Portsmouth has changed,” Goss said.

The lease situation was just part of Scoreboard’s demise, Goss notes. “It’s more than just a lease that is causing this,” he said. More modernized sports bars have emerged in Portsmouth over the last 10 years, like Brewery Lane Tavern and The Page, and Scoreboard has failed to keep up with television technology (converting 80 TVs to HD is an expensive endeavor).

Also, with the economy in rough shape, fewer people are going out to watch sports, Goss said. Options like DirecTV and Comcast enable sports fans to watch almost any game they want from home.

Scoreboard has always faced extra challenges because of its location on the city’s outskirts. Passersby, Goss said, are likely to see the neighboring Bowl-O-Rama and not notice that there is a sports bar with eight pool tables in the same building.
“You’ve got to really come inside to appreciate what it is,” Goss said.

With its movie theater closing last year, the Lafayette Road plaza will soon have a couple of big vacancies. But Goss said he is in serious discussion about at least one of the other locations he is looking at, also on the outskirts of town. Maybe, like the Celtics in Game 4, Scoreboard Sports Lounge will come storming back.