Turner was the victim on one occasion, however, as Casey recalls. ‘In Anaheim, we used to take vans or buses to practice and once in a while a limo would come. I was in front of the hotel and a limo pulls up for a wedding. Turner comes down after a nap and all he had on was very short shorts. He sees me and asks if this is the transportation and I say, “Yes.” Chris piles in and sits in the back, thinking, “How great is this? Going to practice in a limo.” It was dark in there and you couldn’t see his blue shorts, so he looked naked. So the limo driver comes out and sees what he thinks is a naked tall guy sitting in the back of the limo. He went crazy and was going to call the police!’
The light-hearted atmosphere around the Tea Men was typical of the mood among the British players in the NASL. For the most part well-paid and well-treated, to be an NASL player in the mid- to late-’70s was not a bad way to be earning a living. But it was not all parties and practical jokes. The players discovered that when they decided it was time to organise a union.
17. Strikers United
For the first few weeks of the 1979 NASL season, the term ‘striker’ took on a whole new meaning. Maybe it was a sign of having arrived in the higher echelon of American sport, but soccer found itself embroiled in the kind of labour dispute that was becoming common in the major US leagues. Ironically, the seeds for a withdrawal of labour that put NASL players, albeit briefly, on picket lines instead of forward lines were sown by Ed Garvey, head of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). In 1977, Garvey, a labour lawyer, approached Washington Diplomats player John Kerr and suggested that the country’s soccer players should form a union along the lines of the one put together to represent the NFL workforce.
Added to the payroll of the NFLPA, Kerr met with representatives of every team in Washington DC and the North American Soccer League Players Association (NASLPA) was formed. With Garvey and Kerr as its directors, the union was denied recognition by the team owners, who objected to a union for their sport being run by the NFL. Having been denied official recognition for the better part of two years, the NASLPA asked its members to vote for strike action at the beginning of the 1979 season. The strike was a brief one, lasting only five days, and affected only one set of games – those scheduled for 14 April – but it catapulted the union into the media.
‘It was a frustrating time because we were aware that some clubs were getting edgy,’ says Phil Woosnam, the NASL commissioner. ‘The players’ union pushed some people over the top. Owners worried that it would get too expensive and that there would be constant demands from the union. It came at the wrong time.’
While the league and the owners considered the long-term implications, the initial problem for the clubs was how to play the games without a full complement of players. In Fort Lauderdale, due to face the Washington Diplomats, George Best and newly signed Peruvian World Cup star Teofilio Cubillas crossed the picket line to play in the Strikers’ 4–0 defeat. But coach Ron Newman was forced out of retirement at the age of 43 to play for a team that included his son, Guy, assistant coach David Chadwick and a handful of other players making their only appearance of the season. ‘The players had promised us they would play but said they had been threatened that they would lose their visas and be sent back to Europe if they didn’t go on strike,’ says Newman. ‘Phil Woosnam said that we must field a team, so we got local kids, including a goalkeeper who had hardly played. What pissed me off was that at the end of season we lost our division by nine points. We could have got those points in that game. Nobody ever said thanks or gave me the game back.’
The response to the strike call among the players was mixed. The English-dominated Tulsa Roughnecks and Vancouver Whitecaps were largely unaffected, while Rodney Marsh was one of the few players to withdraw his labour at the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The Seattle Sounders faced an almost total walk-out, forcing another coach, Jimmy Gabriel, back on to the field, while the players that Don Megson fielded in the Portland Timbers’ 2–0 loss to a makeshift Minnesota Kicks were, without exception, playing in their only game of the season.
The New England Tea Men’s British contingent was split, with Peter Simpson, Keith Weller, Brian Alderson and Roger Gibbins providing a foundation of first-choice players. But new recruits were needed as well and public relations director Vince Casey remembers accompanying coaches Noel Cantwell and Dennis Viollet on an emergency scouting mission to the area’s Portuguese soccer communities. ‘We were friends with the Portuguese writers covering the local league and we went down to a restaurant to meet these guys who were going to play with us in Philadelphia a couple of days later. To be polite, Dennis asked if they would like something to drink, thinking they would order ginger ale or Coca-Cola. They answered, “Scotch and soda, Budweiser and a gin and tonic.” This in front of the coach they were going to play for two nights later. I still have a great team picture of us in Philadelphia and there is one guy in it with a huge pot belly. I think he was the guy who ordered Scotch and soda. He only lasted the first half.’
Public reaction to the players’ strike was predictably negative. Marsh recalls, ‘It turned the fans off because soccer wasn’t ingrained in them. They thought, “Who are these bunch of guys who’ve come over and gone on strike? Who do they think they are?” That was a problem. I was asked what my opinion was and I said, “I’ll just do whatever the majority of the players at this club want to do because we have to be unified.”’
The strike ended with still no sign of official recognition for the union, leading the NASLPA to file a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board. Finally, on 1 September, that body would officially recognise the NASLPA as the union of the league’s playing force. The NASL, though, still refused to deal with Garvey, viewing him as a front for the NFL. The league was ordered to begin negotiating a deal with the players’ union that would set the standard for salaries and playing conditions around the league and, despite an unsuccessful venture into the US Court of Appeals, the owners were forced to comply. It would take until early 1981, following several other legal battles, for the agreement to be concluded.
While the legal battles were kicking off and the Vancouver Whitecaps were preparing their run to their first NASL championship, the league had been celebrating a two-year deal with ABC, a marked increase on the exposure provided by the previous TVS package. ABC would air nine broadcasts, including the Soccer Bowl.
Viewers of NASL action, in the stands and on television, found themselves watching more of the world’s biggest stars in 1979. As well as Johan Cruyffs decision to play in Los Angeles, West German legend Gerd Muller, top scorer in the 1970 World Cup finals and scorer of the winner in his country’s 1974 final victory against the Netherlands, was joining Best and Cubillas in a star-studded Fort Lauderdale forward line. By the end of the season Muller had scored 19 goals, while Cubillas had found the net 16 times and added 18 assists. Coach Chadwick recalls, ‘I had never seen double touch play like Cubillas. He would open his foot looking like he was going to pass and then he would turn it and flick it inside you. When Ron Newman signed Muller and Cubillas I don’t think he ever thought they could be so deadly. They couldn’t talk to each other in the locker room, but they could work together so well they didn’t need to communicate.’
Keith Weller, who teamed up with Muller the following season after leaving New England, adds, ‘Gerd was a funny character. Most of the guys from non-English speaking countries picked up English quickly, but he either couldn’t or didn’t want to speak English. He would go off at you in German.’
In Washington, Gordon Bradley was beginning his second season in charge of the Diplomats after ending his seven-season connection with the New York Cosmos. In 1978, his additions to the squad had included ex-Newcastle man Paul Cannell, who finished as the club’s top scorer with 14 goals, and former Villa winger Ray Graydon, whose goal against Norwich had won the 1975 League Cup final. But he discovered that trying to sign a world figure of the Beckenbauer or Cruyff stature was a perilou
s pastime.
He recalls, ‘Cesar Menotti, the Argentina manager, said to me at one time, “If you feel like coming down to Buenos Aires and talking to Diego Maradona, it might be the right time to move.” That was when he was 21. I spent quite a lot of time with him but it didn’t pan out as we had hoped for. Menotti’s office was telling us it was a good time to get him out, but he wanted to spend a couple more years in Argentina and eventually went to Napoli. Menotti was a father figure to him and was all for trying to persuade him to come to the US.’
The bid to sign Maradona ended only in disappointment. But when, a few months later, Bradley went south again to attempt to sign Daniel Passarella, who had lifted the World Cup for Argentina in 1978, it almost ended in disaster. ‘I went to their equivalent of the FA Cup final, which was played home and away. River Plate won the first game 4–1 and were going to Rosario Central in an almost meaningless game. I went to the game with an Argentinian friend called Victor and I went wearing red and white, a red collar and a white shirt – I didn’t realise they were the colours of the River Plate shirt.
‘River Plate won 3–1 and after the game a person knocked me on the shoulder from behind. When I turned, he smacked me right in the face. My friend looked back and I pointed at someone. Victor went after the guy and caught him, an 18-year-old kid. Police cars came and guns were firing and the whole thing was going upside down. We were thrown into a police car and driven up a one-way street the wrong way. They were firing guns into the air and putting guns to our heads. They drove us into the countryside and were threatening to kill Victor. He said to them, “Do you know who this guy is?” They took us to a jail three hours outside Buenos Aires. It had a clay floor and bars and we were put in different cells. I was thinking that nobody in the world knew where I was. We were frightened, to say the least. Victor said to the lieutenant at the jail, “You are going to be in so much trouble if you don’t listen to me.” The lieutenant had some knowledge about what was going on and let Victor make a call to his uncle and he called a lieutenant in another part of Argentina. The other lieutenant was told by Victor’s uncle, “You had better let them go.”
‘Sure enough, calls were made and we were let out. Victor said everything was OK, except for the guy who had been pointing the gun at us. “I want him to apologise,” Victor said. I replied, “Victor, shut your mouth and let’s get out of here.” But the guy was made to apologise in Spanish to me and now he had to take us back. Victor said, “If that guy is going to take us back, we have got to head straight back to Buenos Aires instead of the ground.”’
Bradley survived to hold meetings with Passarella and River Plate officials at the Sheraton Hotel in Buenos Aires. ‘We were offering $1.5 million and I was on the phone almost every minute with Madison Square Garden, who owned the Washington team. River Plate said he was worth more, so we offered $1.7 million. Their attorney said, “Do you want to go to $2 million?” Passarella said, “Coach, get me out of this country.” I told him I couldn’t help him, that the club wanted $2 million and we had offered $1.7 million. He cried on my shoulder. The hotel was filled with press and they found out I was negotiating. There was a headline in a paper, “British bandito trying to steal our captain.”’
The most significant arrival in the American capital for the 1979 season was English attacker Alan Green, returning to Washington for the first time in two years after a permanent transfer from Coventry. Backed up by Cannell’s 10 goals, Green’s haul of 16 helped the Diplomats into the play-offs, where their hopes were immediately ended by Los Angeles.
Another effective NASL scorer was Jeff Bourne, who tallied 18 goals and 15 assists for an Atlanta Chiefs side that had moved home from Colorado but was never in the play-off hunt. Bourne’s tally took his record to 54 goals in three NASL seasons, compared to 14 goals in 86 League games at Derby and Crystal Palace.
Bourne, who joined Derby from Burton Albion, admits, ‘I was just a local lad in Derby and I think I was a bit in awe of everyone when I was there. We had 14 internationals in the squad. I think playing in America, away from the spotlight, being a bigger fish in a smaller pond, brought out the best in me.’
Having celebrated his 30th birthday during the 1978 season, Bourne, then a Dallas player, was asked to guest for the New York Cosmos on a European tour. ‘I’d heard that their coach, Eddie Firmani, fancied me as a player and asked Dallas if they would allow me to go with them. During the tour, the coach, Al Miller, called and said, “I have sold you to Chicago.” We had an argument and I said, “I am not going anywhere.” I think the club were in difficulties and realised I was one of their assets. In the end I went to Atlanta, where Ted Turner was the new owner.’
Bourne had played for an American coach at Dallas, but found Atlanta’s Dan Wood difficult to get on with. ‘He was just a college coach and didn’t have much idea about the professional game. When we went on a road trip, he said to me, “It’s your turn to get the bags from the baggage claim.” I said, “Fuck off. I will get my own, but not the American kids’.” Later in the season, he asked everyone what they thought was going wrong. The Americans said, “We don’t like the way Jeff Bourne takes the mickey out of us in training.” I used to nutmeg them because if they had their legs open it was the natural thing to do. They had to learn to deal with things like that.’
It was halfway through the season before the Detroit Express were able to welcome back Trevor Francis, fresh from his European Cup heroics, but he proved well worth waiting for as he scored 14 goals in 14 games. Another cup-winning goalscorer landed in Detroit in the shape of Roger Osborne, Ipswich’s match-winner in their FA Cup triumph a year earlier. Keith Furphy top-scored with fourteen goals, while former Scotland striker Ted MacDougall added nine after his late arrival to partner Francis. Now 32, MacDougall had hit the headlines with Bournemouth in 1971 when he scored a record nine goals in an FA Cup tie against Margate. His high-profile move to Manchester United had not worked out, leading to a transfer to West Ham after six months and only five goals. A nine-month residence at Upton Park proved no more successful but MacDougall’s touch returned at Norwich and Southampton, where his combined total of League goals was a more than respectable 93 in 198 games. Veteran full-backs Mick Coop, the ex-Coventry man, and Tony Dunne, a European Cup-winner with Manchester United 11 years before the success of Francis and Forest, featured in the back four, but Detroit once again got no further than the first round of the play-offs.
At the Houston Hurricane, Finnish coach Timo Liekoski brought about a revival and his team posted 22 wins, the most of any team in the American Conference. Defender Stewart Jump, in his second year with a team short on star names, says, ‘Timo bought in some good players. We were able to run and work hard. When you are playing with people with a good attitude, it goes an awful long way.’
Houston, though, were to suffer their first home loss of the season to Philadelphia in the play-offs and suffered an early exit as Scottish striker Davie Robb found the net in each game after finishing the season as the Fury’s top scorer with 16 goals. Lining up alongside Robb was Frank Worthington, another of those crowd-pleasers whose ability and personality made them an ideal fit for the NASL. Beginning his career at Huddersfield and being denied a move to Liverpool when he failed the Anfield medical, Worthington had earned eight England caps during five years at Leicester, where the mere numbers of his Filbert Street career – 72 goals in just over 200 games – could not begin to do justice to the balance, skill and arrogance of one of the First Division’s great showmen.
Worthington, who had spent two seasons at Bolton by the time he arrived in Philadelphia, succeeded where Peter Osgood had failed a year earlier, notching ten goals and seven assists during the regular season and scoring one more in the play-offs before the Fury’s title hopes were ended by the Rowdies. ‘We had a bad side,’ he recalls. ‘Our coach was Yugoslav and didn’t speak English and it all went wrong. There was a big controversy after the game in Toronto. They needed nine points to reach
the play-offs and we wanted three. They won 4–3, but under the American points system we both got our quota. At the end, both teams celebrated and then came suggestions that the match was rigged, which it wasn’t.’
Alan Hudson was another of that group of ’70s stars whose glittering skills stood out in a decade that featured its fair share of dull, dour and downright ugly football. It seems inevitable that such a wayward talent would follow Marsh and Best to the NASL, although it took until 1979, after a falling-out with Arsenal, before it happened.
A teenage sensation with Chelsea, Hudson missed out on the 1970 FA Cup final, and a possible World Cup place, because of an ankle injury. He re-established himself as the midfield genius of one of the game’s most exciting teams, helping Chelsea to win the 1971 European Cup-Winners’ cup and qualify again for Wembley, where they lost in the 1972 League Cup final to Stoke. It was to Stoke that Hudson was transferred for £240,000 early in 1974, two months before Peter Osgood also left Stamford Bridge for Southampton. A member of Don Revie’s England team that beat world champions West Germany 2–0 at Wembley in 1975, Hudson played only once more for his country and was sold to Arsenal late in 1976 for £200,000. He was in danger of becoming a forgotten man before forcing his way back into the Arsenal team for the 1977–78 season and inspiring the Gunners to the FA Cup final with several months of sublime play, earning a brief recall to the England party. But after clashing with Gunners manager Terry Neill in the aftermath of the Londoners’ surprise Wembley defeat, Hudson’s Highbury days were numbered and a £100,000 transfer to Seattle was arranged. His career in top-class English football was effectively over at the age of 27, although he would return eventually to play a few more games for Stoke.
Hudson’s new contract doubled his Highbury pay packet and took him to a land where he ‘settled in as if I was born to be there’. In his book, The Working Man’s Ballet, Hudson writes, ‘This really was the best experience of my life so far, with the opportunity to play week in, week out, against the best players in the world.’
Playing for Uncle Sam Page 24