Playing for Uncle Sam

by David Tossell

  Defender Mick Hoban coordinated much of that promotional work at Atlanta and Portland. ‘It was not just a question of going out to the occasional hospital to visit, it was a planned campaign every day, utilising the players so that when we got to games we had got to know everyone. In other sports, the players were so well compensated they didn’t worry about anything else. Basketball players either weren’t motivated or capable of talking through a business presentation. I was well educated and had been a head boy, so I was used to having to stand up and make speeches and it served me well.

  ‘You had to browbeat some of the guys. Some of the old guys from Britain wanted the easy life. You had to coerce and threaten them and I was given the responsibility of doing that. It was a good ploy because a team is cliquey and when you employ someone from outside it can be difficult. You have to be a player to converse with the players and they were a lot more helpful for me than for someone from outside.

  ‘You weren’t talking to guys who were thinking about their post-football careers, but I told them, “This is the best way to meet people if you want to stay here and work – plus you can meet people who can give you deals on holidays and cars.” We had to train the guys, show them what to do if we went to a school assembly in a gymnasium. After two or three times they got it. We had pre-packed speeches for Rotary Clubs, ladies’ clubs, something for every group.’

  Portland defender Neil Rioch recalls, ‘I had interacted with the fans a bit at Villa. At that time if you were not married you lived in lodgings and, of course, you were with an elderly couple, so in the evenings you found yourself wondering what to do. I was in digs with Pat McMahon and Chico Hamilton and the three of us used to go down to the supporters’ club and sit with them and play cards or dominoes. So I was used to mixing with fans when I got to Portland. After every game it was compulsory to go to the hotel and meet the supporters and I developed friendships I still have to this day. And the appearances we did held me in good stead for later on in business. I learned the importance of promotion and marketing.’

  Peter Wall, who played and coached in St Louis and California, explains, ‘You had to do as much as you could in the community to get people to come to the games. Part of the contract was to do it. You had no choice. The soccer camps were a big money-maker for the clubs. They lasted eight to ten weeks during the summer holidays and you would usually have half a dozen players there each week. Actually, they were fun. You were working with kids and the weather was nice.’

  Alan Merrick, one of the senior players in Minnesota, had a background that helped him tackle his PR duties for the Kicks. ‘I had done some public speaking and some teaching at a private school so it was relatively easy for me to integrate into the PR stuff. Some players shied away from it, but the club gave coaching and instruction, protocols to abide by, a dress code, media training. They told them the pitfalls if they were not prepared.

  ‘To the public who don’t know soccer, the game is from Mars and we are the Martians. You have to tell the public what your skills are and how the people can enjoy it. Then it makes sense. Eight of us stayed on for the first winter and I went to every high school in Minnesota. Some days it was three schools in a day, presenting in front of the whole school. We showed highlights of the previous year; what we had done and who we were. Then we would have a skills session and we would pull out five of the teachers, who were either the nerds or the good sports, and we’d have fun and play a game, keeping the ball away from them. The kids just loved it.’

  Peter McParland, whose Atlanta club was one of the first to launch grassroots initiatives in the ’60s, says, ‘When we demonstrated soccer drills at high schools, the American football coaches would often want to get their guys playing as well. They saw that soccer could get their players moving around on their toes and develop a nimbleness of feet that they could bring into American football.’

  It is ironic that Ron Newman, who helped to launch many of the league’s grassroots programmes in Atlanta and Dallas, ended up as a master of the pantomime-style gimmickry that, in many places, took over from youth development as the main form of promoting the sport. Although Newman regrets the trend, he understands the difficult line that clubs had to tread. ‘When, in the later years of the league, teams started getting crowds without having worked to get kids playing soccer, I got a little pissed off. Nobody had done the work I had done. Soccer had become a promotional thing. But just because proper promotion will bring the crowds in, it doesn’t mean you should not do the thing with kids. But simply believing that if we had kids playing we would get them to the stadium was wrong as well. They trained twice a week and played on the same day as we did. In the end, Mum and Dad were soccered out.’

  15. The Price of Success

  ‘The locals were calling us the English mafia. Vancouver is very multicultural and many people didn’t like having players from one place. But once we had a winning streak we became their team.’ That is how former England international goalkeeper Tony Waiters remembers the reaction to the Vancouver Whitecaps’ transformation from a nondescript, unambitious club into the team that would loosen the New York Cosmos’ stranglehold on the NASL in the late ’70s.

  Vancouver had first played host to Sunderland in the United Soccer Association days of 1967 and had been back in the NASL for three seasons when John Best arrived from the Seattle Sounders to take up the position of general manager. He found a club ill-equipped to take on the best in the NASL. ‘All the players were part-time,’ he says. ‘They were mainly a Canadian team and had only a few imported players. I didn’t feel the club was fully determined to take a professional approach. You couldn’t have players who were part-time and play in a premier league.’

  The makeover began with the removal of German head coach Eckhard Krautzen, whom Best felt was distracted by being in charge of the Canadian national team. Tony Waiters, who had spent almost five seasons as manager of Plymouth, was chosen to take over. Born in Southport, Waiters won five caps in England’s goal during nine years at Blackpool and came back from a three-year retirement to finish his playing career with Burnley in the 1970–71 season. After coaching the England youth team, Waiters arrived at Home Park and led Argyle to promotion to the Second Division in 1974–75.

  Having been fired by Plymouth, Waiters packed his bags as soon as the call came from America. ‘Phil Woosman had approached me a couple of years earlier and I was not interested. But being fired is a great motivation for you. The NASL seemed like a good opportunity.’

  The Whitecaps won only three of their first nine games in 1977, but recovered to take second place in the Western Division before losing to eventual Soccer Bowl finalists Seattle in the first round of the play-offs. Waiters had strengthened the squad by bringing in former Birmingham and Bolton winger Gordon Taylor from Blackburn Rovers and Derek Possee, whose 107 Football League goals included 79 in a 6-year stint at Millwall. Possee, out of contract at Orient, was an instant success with 11 goals in 16 games.

  Major rebuilding work followed in the winter as Best and Waiters made a policy decision to recruit only English players to play alongside the Canadians. In front of Wolves goalkeeper Phil Parkes, who returned to Canada after missing the previous season through injury, a rebuilt defence included former Blackpool, Crystal Palace and Coventry man John Craven, Blackpool full-back Steve Harrison, a future England coach under Graham Taylor, and long-time Derby utility man Peter Daniel. In the hub of the midfield, former Arsenal stalwart Jon Sammels arrived from Leicester to team up with Filbert Street colleague Steve Kember, whose name had been made at Crystal Palace and Chelsea. In front of them was Kevin Hector, scorer of 147 League goals in 426 games for Derby following a transfer from Bradford Park Avenue, where his scoring rate had been 113 in only 176 games. Hector’s two England caps included an ill-fated appearance as substitute in the 1973 game against Poland at Wembley, where he nearly rescued England’s World Cup qualification hopes with a late header.

  Hector had a familiar f
igure feeding him from the left wing, former Derby teammate Alan Hinton. Waiters recalls, ‘A big turning point was when Alan joined as player and assistant coach in 1978. He was approaching 36, a good stone overweight, but we got him fit. He didn’t do a lot of running but his crosses were fantastic.’

  Hinton had spent the previous NASL season in Dallas after concluding a First Division career that had begun at Wolves, continued at Nottingham Forest and achieved its greatest success at the Baseball Ground, where his consistency was an integral part of two League Championship-winning teams. The winner of three England caps, Hinton was one of a talented group whose international ambitions were left on the shelf after Alf Ramsey achieved World Cup success without employing recognised wingers. His arrival in Vancouver not only marked the beginning of a successful second career as a coach but also saw him sign off as a player with a record-breaking 30 assists, setting up almost half of the Whitecaps’ total of 68 goals.

  Waiters continues, ‘We brought over players who would not be seen as outstanding international players, but were good professionals. Everyone was trying to be a mini New York Cosmos at that time and overstretching themselves. A lot of the players that teams signed didn’t mean a lot in America anyway, so we went for guys who were good for the team. If you were on our budget and needed journeymen, you went with what you knew, which for us meant players from England.’

  Sammels adds, ‘When Vancouver set about buying players, they didn’t want the Jack the lad types who would go out for the ride. They brought players into the side who would integrate and not be aloof. We had good team spirit and good young Canadians, who were better than the Americans. Then Tony and Alan Hinton instilled the ethos that we wanted to go out and play.’

  Vancouver lost two of their first four games in 1978 before making their intentions clear by winning five straight. And when they thumped Tulsa 5–1 it signalled the start of 13 consecutive wins to the end of the regular season. They finished by scoring six goals twice in the last three games to win their division with a won-lost record of 24–6, matching the Cosmos for the best record in the league. Hector was the top scorer with 21 goals, while Bob Campbell, a future Northern Ireland international, arrived late in the season from Sheffield United to score 9 goals in 13 appearances. Canadian midfielder Bobby Lenarduzzi, who had played 63 Football League games as a teenager at Reading, contributed 10 goals and 17 assists.

  Campbell added two more goals in a 4–0 victory against Toronto in the first round of the play-offs to set up a contest with Portland, who had finished as division runners-up behind Vancouver. Portland had failed to score in two defeats to the Whitecaps in the regular season, but a Clyde Best goal was enough to earn them the first game in Portland. Best scored again in the return at Vancouver’s Empire Stadium, along with winger Willie Anderson, to bring a premature end to the Whitecaps’ season. ‘We screwed up,’ says Possee. ‘We treated the second game like a European game where goal difference counted, even though it didn’t matter because of the mini-game system. We looked at it as though we needed to win by two goals and pushed forward too early and they caught us. We played wrong tactically and we learned a lot that helped us the next year.’

  It was more than the team’s shirts that changed – from red and white to royal blue – over the winter of 1978–79. Waiters’ first task was to replace his right-hand man, Alan Hinton, who accepted the head coach’s position at Tulsa. Bob McNab, who had played in the NASL for San Antonio three years earlier, answered the call after his wife, Barbara, spotted a newspaper advertisement for the position.

  ‘She had lived in Vancouver and after my season in San Antonio I had driven up there and spent a few weeks on vacation,’ McNab recalls. ‘I went down to Plymouth and Tony must have felt I was something like the person he needed. Alan Hinton had been player-coach and had a great season as a player, but I think Tony was looking for someone to do more of the coaching. Tony felt he wanted someone with my background, from a top-class club.’

  Waiters made changes along the spine of the Whitecaps team. At the back, former Everton centre-half Roger Kenyon, veteran of 12 seasons at Goodison Park, added height and strength, while Chelsea’s Ray Lewington brought young legs and hard graft to the centre of midfield. Up front, a partner for Hector was found in the shape of Trevor Whymark, scorer of 74 League goals in almost 250 games for Ipswich. The slightly built forward, effective in the air, had earned one England cap in a World Cup qualifier in Luxembourg, but had missed out on one of the biggest days in Ipswich’s history later in the same season when injury robbed him of a place in the 1978 FA Cup final victory over Arsenal.

  ‘I’d had a knee ligament injury and Bobby Robson said he was willing to let me go,’ says Whymark. ‘I spoke to Lawrie McMenemy at Southampton but in the back of my mind was that I was not as fit as I wanted to be. I didn’t think I could do myself justice in the First Division so I went to Vancouver and thought I would finish my career there.’

  To provide service from the flanks, the Whitecaps flew Scotland winger Willie Johnston across the Atlantic in the hope that his trip would be happier than his World Cup journey to Argentina. Johnston, a skilful player with a belligerent streak that resulted in more than 20 dismissals during his career at Rangers and West Bromwich Albion, had played 22 times for Scotland, including their 3–1 defeat to Peru in the opening game of the 1978 World Cup finals. While the Scots were trying to rebuild their shattered confidence, Johnston was revealed to have failed a drugs test and was sent home. To operate on the opposite flank to the veteran, the Whitecaps signed Carl Valentine, a 20-year-old, express-speed winger from Manchester who had made his Oldham debut three years earlier.

  Vancouver won three of their first five games, but McNab, who played a couple of early-season games while Lenarduzzi was preparing to switch from midfield to left-back, says, ‘We were just scraping wins, although we were a much better side. We played both our wide men as wide out as possible so that we had four up front. What we weren’t doing was winning second balls from dead balls and goal kicks, because teams had twice as many men in the midfield area. I mentioned it to Tony but he said, “I don’t want any of that Arsenal defensive stuff.”’

  By the time Hector grabbed a hat-trick to beat Edmonton, the Whitecaps had won eight out of ten games. But their previous game, a 2–0 win against the Philadelphia Fury, had presented an opportunity to further strengthen the side. McNab recalls, ‘We lacked a bit of craft and confidence in midfield. Barbara and I took Alan Ball out for dinner before we played against Philadelphia in Vancouver. He said, “Get me out of Philadelphia.” They had excellent players but they were all stars and not enough workers. Ballie was magnificent in the first half of our game and I said to Tony, “I have seen the man who is going to help us: Alan Ball.” Tony didn’t agree with me but I asked him to take a look at the tape of the game. Ballie was not even fully fit, but he was unbelievable in the first half until his lack of fitness showed. I knew Ballie, warts and all, from England and Arsenal and I knew he could do it for us.’

  Ball remembers things a little differently, claiming, ‘I was quite happy in Philadelphia and didn’t go looking for a move. But with Vancouver being primarily an English team, they came in and traded for me. It was a mutual thing.’

  In the few weeks it took for Ball’s trade to be arranged, Vancouver lost three out of four games before getting their season back on track with a 4–1 thrashing of the Cosmos. ‘I think I was the icing on the cake for them,’ says Ball. ‘They wanted a bit of experience on the pitch and someone to provide some leadership.’

  In 15 games following his arrival in Canada, Ball scored 8 goals, provided 10 assists, and proved to be an inspiration. ‘He absolutely had a new lease of life,’ says Best. ‘There was space for him to use his skills and he played in a small radius instead of trying to pick out players from 30 or 40 yards.’

  Possee describes Ball’s character and confidence as ‘the missing piece of the puzzle’, while McNab adds, ‘Ballie was
the difference, with his class and his ability to get more out of his teammates. He was, and still is, the best one-touch footballer I have ever seen.’

  Whymark says, ‘When Alan joined it made you realise how good a player you had to be to play with guys like that in their prime and made you realise how far off top-notch you really were. He had lost his legs a bit but not upstairs. He was a great influence on the players around him.’

  Vancouver retained their division title, with Hector and Whymark scoring 12 and 10 goals respectively and Johnston leading the team with 12 assists. Says Best, ‘Apart from his goals, Kevin Hector was such a composed player in the area. Put him on the edge of the area or the corner of the box and play to his feet, and he was always able to wriggle round people and put you in dangerous positions. And Whymark was a classy, skilful, goalscoring striker.’

  Waiters, however, admits, ‘We had a more spectacular team in ’78 and played better football. But the ’79 team did their job better. They were used to the Astroturf field, which required a possession game, playing to feet.’

  Dallas were beaten in two games in the first round of the play-offs, Craven netting both goals past former Manchester United and England keeper Alex Stepney in the home win. Next up were the Los Angeles Aztecs, who were coached by former Holland World Cup coach Rinus Michels and had been steered towards the play-offs by 13 goals from Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff, lured out of retirement by a reported $700,000-per-season deal. Playing alongside the 32-year-old former Ajax and Barcelona genius, the league’s MVP was English forward Chris Dangerfield, making his sixth NASL stop in five seasons. After scoring nine times in the regular season, Dangerfield’s three goals helped ease the Aztecs past the Washington Diplomats in their first play-off series.