Category: Sidewinder Insider

The original North American Soccer League will always hold a special place in my heart.

Despite its overspending, overreach and ultimate self-destruction, it broadened my football world and allowed me to become fully immersed in the Beautiful Game.

But as much as I loved the NASL, I also admired the American Soccer League – as much as I could. It was rare to find anything more than league standings in my local paper, so I usually had to wait on the annual release of the “Complete Handbook of Soccer” to get ASL info.

Although completely overshadowed by the league that featured Pele, George Best and Johan Cruyff, it had been around since 1933. Its longevity was impressive, despite spending much of its existence as a low budget, Northeast-based circuit. (Its headquarters were based in Providence, Rhode Island).

So when former NBA great Bob Cousy was named ASL commissioner on December 19, 1974, I was hopeful. Sure, Cousy was a basketball legend with no ties to association football, but almost everyone knew his name. And the American Soccer League desperately needed some name recognition.

“It’s the first opportunity that has come along that allows me to stay in sports and retain my home in New England,” Cousy, who continued to work as a TV color commentator for basketball and consultant for various companies, told United Press International. “It’s great to be working with people who are dedicated to their work. And lastly, I guess I need fulltime employment.

“It’s a sport I know nothing about but I’m willing to learn.”
When Cousy took the reins of the ASL, it featured the Boston Astros, Connecticut Wildcats, Delaware Wings, New Jersey Brewers and New York Apollo in the East Conference while the Cleveland Cobras, Cincinnati Comets, Indiana Tigers and Rhode Island Oceaneers made up the Midwest Conference.

“I’m no stranger to public relations work,” Cousy said. “I’ve kissed my share of babies, marched in parades and flown helicopters to push pro basketball. The ASL wanted publicity, and that’s why they came to me.”

While the NASL was stocked with international stars (mostly in the twilight of their careers), Cousy advocated a more homegrown approach.

“We’ve got to start thinking of our American colleges as our farm system,” he told UPI in a 1975 interview.

But the ASL also needed to widen its footprint if it wanted to become a legitimate national league. Cousy was tasked with figuring out how to make that happen in a financially responsible way.

“Realistically, no one is making dollars in soccer at this time – the big guys or the little guys,” he said. “For instance, our franchises sell for $35,000. (NASL franchises) go for $350,000. Pele has helped our cause even though he’s with the other league. He’s generated some fringe benefits for us.

“Since Pele’s arrival people have been coming to us and discussing franchises. Before, I was chasing them around.”

In 1975 the ASL was still regional, although the Chicago Cats, Cleveland Cobras and Pittsburgh Miners added three major markets.

But 1976 saw expansion to the West Coast, with the Los Angeles Skyhawks, Oakland Buccaneers, Sacramento Spirits, Tacoma Tides and Utah Golden Spikers (replaced during the season with the Utah Pioneers) joining.

“They (the NASL) look better right now,” Cousy told Associated Press in a May, 1976, interview, “but our approach is more sensible. With our numbers, we can draw 3,000 or 4,000 a game and stay in business and stay in the black. Our grocery store is smaller than their supermarket.”

Indeed it was. But the “Mom and Pop” league struggled against the big box NASL. Franchises came and went, and with rare exceptions attendance was terrible. In 1979 Cousy resigned his post with the ASL, and at least one league official was happy for the change.

“The commissioner doesn’t have to be a soccer man,” Pennsylvania Stoners president and coach Willie Ehrlich told the New York Times. “But once he’s bitten by the bug, he’s got to show it. After five years as commissioner, Cousy still goes around telling people he knows nothing about soccer.”

With or without Cousy, there was no happily ever after for the ASL. It folded in 1983 and while five franchises survived to form the original United Soccer League, that venture played only one full season in 1984. In fact, America’s pro soccer bubble burst completely that year as the NASL also went cleats-up.

Still, the American Soccer League competed over six different decades and is deeply rooted in United States soccer history.

It never really grabbed the spotlight, but give it credit for trying to step out of the shadows.

In the movie “The American President,” Andrew Shepherd – the title character – delivers an impassioned speech during a news conference.

At one point he says, “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight.”

It’s a terrific movie speech and truly resonates, especially in the current political climate.

But I’m not gonna to go there (that’s what Twitter is for). Instead, I want to hijack that excerpt and apply it to association football:

“Lower division American soccer isn’t easy. Lower division American soccer is advanced supportership. You’ve gotta want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight.”

Indeed it will.

And does.

If you’re a fan of Major League Soccer, you probably don’t spend a lot of time worrying about these things.

You go to an Atlanta United FC match at palatial Mercedes-Benz Stadium, do a couple of Viking Thunder Claps, enjoy your one price, all-you-care-to-drink cola, and you’ve been part of the experience.

It’s franchise soccer and if that’s what you like, that’s what MLS is providing.

If, however, you enjoy the kind of football built from the ground up, you have to accept the fact that you’re almost always on shaky ground.

Thanks to Greenville Football Club, I was finally able to realize there is much, much more to see in American soccer than what I see on television and big stadiums.

A lot of people are unaware of the lower divisions because they aren’t exposed to them, and I used to be one of those people.

But then Greenville FC came along and it opened my eyes to other clubs and other leagues.

It reintroduced me to the Atlanta Silverbacks and led me toward the paths of clubs such as Asheville City SC, Motorik FC Alexandria and Unity F.C.

And even though I don’t have a luxury box at Finley Stadium, I’m now an owner of Chattanooga FC. (Come to my house and I’ll gladly show you my yard sign and certificate).

That wouldn’t have happened if GVLFC hadn’t happened.

But again, if you cast your lot with grassroots soccer, things will often get muddy.

On Tuesday, Greenville FC officially announced it was taking a hiatus from the National Premier Soccer League this year.

There is the hope it will return in 2021 – whether in the NPSL or some other circuit – but it still comes as a blow to supporters who’ve made the club an integral part of their summers.

But hey – things are tough all over.

The Silverbacks, rebranded as Atlanta SC, went from the NPSL to the National Independent Soccer Association and now seems to have basically just disappeared.

Go to its website and, well, it doesn’t have one anymore.

Other clubs across the country come and go, of course, breaking the hearts of those who follow them yet rarely rating a mention in the national soccer conversation.

Look, it would be a lot easier to step away from it all.

I support Celtic FC and also enjoy following Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund. That gives me a lot of soccer to enjoy spread out over a lot of months.

But it’s a helluva drive from my house to Glasgow.

On the other hand Sirrine Stadium – the most recent home of Greenville FC – is just a couple of miles away.

Local soccer isn’t sexy, but it’s real. There’s a reason the world’s game is ultimately rooted in small communities.

So wherever you live, seek out the men and women who play for the clubs near you.

Buy a ticket.

Buy a shirt.

Buy into the dream.

It’s “gonna put up a fight,” but one day – if you’re lucky – you might just see that the struggle was worth it.

Soccer Twitter is much like political Twitter in that it reveals a huge divide – with a healthy dose of infighting.

Some are all-in with Major League Soccer – the golden child of the United States Soccer Federation – and believe the closed professional pyramid that includes the United Soccer League and its three branches is all well and good.

Then again, there are those among the USL faithful who have issues with MLS and wouldn’t mind a hostile takeover.

People who like to see their clubs grow from a community sprout have little use for franchise soccer, and find themselves at odds with the “bought not built” model.

And many of us want America to follow the world’s lead and adopt a system of promotion and relegation.

Throw in the National Women’s Soccer League, the fledgling National Independent Soccer Association and amateur loops such as the National Premier Soccer League, United Premier Soccer League and Women’s Premier Soccer League, and you have thousands of different voices screaming in hundreds of different directions and making an incredible amount of noise.

If you think soccer Twitter is lively now, though, imagine what it would’ve been like had it existed back in 1993. In case you’ve forgotten, are too young remember or never cared to begin with, that was a huge year for American soccer.

With the first World Cup coming to the United States in 1994, the country had a mandate from FIFA to establish a Division 1 league.

Originally such a league was supposed to be in place by 1992, so FIFA was already getting antsy about the delay. But officials from the USSF promised one would be established no later than 1995, and soccer’s mad dash for a major league was on.

The primary candidates were the Super League proposed by the USSF and something known as League One America.

The existing American Professional Soccer League waited in the wings, with its officials thinking the APSL could be in the mix if given a fair shake.

League One America had the wildest aspirations – by far.

The brainchild of Chicago businessman Jim Paglia, League One would be a single entity model with 12 teams playing in 20,000-seat stadiums constructed specifically for the league. There would also be “adjacent entertainment complexes and exhibit halls” so the matches would be part of events.

Players would make an average of $65,000 per season with individual and team performance incentives.

But League One America was all about the Americanization of the game, and its proposed rule changes turned association football into a whole new sport.

There would be tiered points depending on where the ball was kicked (the pitch would be divided into sections) and which player kicked it. According to a retrospective written for The Guardian back in 2016, points ranged from “one for a striker to three for a defender, and a team could earn an extra half point if their player scored between the posts of the traditional-sized goal and a new, larger outer goal that was being proposed.”

“Admittedly our proposal is more radical, but it is also more workable,” Paglia told the Orlando Sentinel in a December, 1993, story. “You combine all of our elements and you lower the risk factor.”

Such a league would’ve been interesting, but it wouldn’t have been soccer as anyone knew it.

The USSF eyed 12 teams in major U.S. markets playing in a league with USSF president and World Cup Organizing Committee head Alan Rothenberg serving as commissioner.

It would function as a single entity for three years before stadium owners could buy “licensing rights” from the league.

“There are elements in the World Cup organization, people in the venues, in operations and marketing who are among the best and the brightest,” Rothenberg told the Hartford Courant for a July, 1993, story. “They could be the core of the management group for a new league.”

As for the APSL, which had existing teams in Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Vancouver, it hoped to formulate a business plan that would allow it to attain Division 1 status and possibly merge with any other “major” league that might be formed following the World Cup.

Los Angeles Salsa president William De La Peña, who was also a member of the USSF board of directors, told the Tampa Tribune in November, 1993, he wanted a fair process.

“I don’t believe the (USSF) is in any position to approve only one plan to control soccer in this country,” he said. “We would have some reservations about anti-trust violations. We could have the three leagues all coordinate together and let the market determine which system works best.”

Of course in the end, the USSF idea won.

The Super League plan morphed into Major League Soccer, which was founded in 1995 and started play with 10 franchises in 1996.

The APSL was rebranded as the A-League in 1995 (and its remnants ultimately became part of the USL), and League One America never got beyond the drawing board.

One can only imagine the cussing and discussing on Twitter while these organizations were making their plays.

Fortunately for the argumentative types, domestic soccer is as dysfunctional as ever, and remains tasty fodder for Twitter fights.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention this tidbit. Shortly after the World Cup was awarded to the United States in 1988, the USSF drew up a development plan for the sport. One of its key features was promotion/relegation.

Feel free to Tweet among yourselves …

* This story was updated to clarify information about the APSL.