Oh, for Pete’s and pity’s sake!
So the Team Owners’ Association – the breakaway USL-1 group trying to form a new division-two pro soccer league north of Mexico – needs a name.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
It’s a bit of a poser. History has already burned through United Soccer Association, National Professional Soccer League, American Professional Soccer League, A-League and United Soccer League. American Soccer League may be out there, but where your two biggest and strongest franchises are safely tucked away in British and French North America, that just won’t play sufficiently at home.
So they’ve gone and resurrected North American Soccer League. The biggest success – and most horrendous failure – in the history of the beautiful game in the Americas.
Not on my watch you don’t, buckos!!
I grew up on the western edge of the University of Toronto campus, just south of Bloor and St. George. I went to junior high school in Yorkville. If you know your Toronto geography, you can easily visualize an adolescent me walking by Varsity Stadium just one heck of a lot.
One day, a big colourful sign went up, informing a largely indifferent Bloor Street that the North American Soccer League was in town. “Toronto Metros” didn’t mean much to me – but the names of all the upcoming opponents were up there as well.
Boy and man, I have always loved and admired the usually hopeless plight of really obscure pro sports team. In one glance at a billboard, I was introduced to the Rochester Lancers, New York Cosmos, Montreal Olympique, Dallas Tornado, St. Louis Stars, Atlanta Chiefs and Washington Darts.
Soccer – frankly – bored me back then. But this league electrified me from the start. I had no idea how cool it was to have division-one pro soccer three blocks from my home. But certainly, I started going to the games.
And every spring, a new sign went up on Bloor Street. And here came the Philadelphia Atoms, Miami Gatos, Los Angeles Aztecs, Portland Timbers, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Baltimore Comets, Boston Minutemen – Team Hawaii! Connecticut Bicentennials!
I found myself wallowing in all this – with utter joy. I still didn’t even like soccer that much, but the team names and colours hooked me – and wild out-of-control expansion just brought more and more and more.
And the soccer had its strong points, too. It didn’t take long to understand that when the Rochester Lancers came in, that was an intense, edgy game. Pretty much everyone hated the Cosmos even before Pele showed up. They were awful then, too, but still easily connected with the deep-dislike reflex of many fans, mine own good self included.
Oh, and Toronto Metros-Croatia beat the Minnesota Kicks 3-0 in Soccer Bowl ’76. A freaking championship! In Toronto! Incredible! Those hopeless Maple Leafs hadn’t hoisted a Stanley Cup in nine whole years!
For me, the North American Soccer League was a joyous whirl of misplaced optimism. I wasn’t there where in ended – at Varsity Stadium! But the things we love in our youth tend to delight us throughout our lives, and the NASL will always stand high on my list of happy nostalgia.
And for all that I – and all Canadian soccer lovers – have huge hopes pinned on the future progress of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact, these are still second-division squads, and their league in utterly no way at all matches the dreams, drama and demise of the NASL.
If you go ahead with this, boys – and if you manage to get sanctioned by the USSF and how’s that going by the way? – I won’t be joining you.
Oh, I’ll write about it, but I’ll come up with my own name, thanks. I may grant you “NASL2,” acknowledging you’re the second league to claim the moniker, and are a second-division outfit, as well.
But understand – as far as myself and many others are concerned, you are digging in sacred ground.
The Memphis Rogues are buried in that ground. The San Antonio Thunder, San Jose Jaws and Las Vegas Quicksilvers are buried in that ground. The Calgary Boomers and Edmonton Drillers are buried in that ground.
I remember once, a couple of decades back, taking a midnight stroll past the gates of a graveyard on the outskirts of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. There was a simple sign:
“Please respect our privacy, as we respect yours.”
The Team Owners’ Association is not the NASL, and will never be the NASL.
Good luck and all, but go away – and leave my ghosts alone.
Onward!