Playing for Uncle Sam

by David Tossell

  Willey’s long-time partner, Ron Futcher, had not even been among Goodwin’s first choices when the Kicks coach approached Luton manager Harry Haslam about borrowing some players. ‘He wanted guys like Jimmy Husband and John Aston, but they didn’t want to go at that time,’ Futcher recalls. ‘I was just 19 and had not played much that year, so Harry asked if I wanted to go and get some experience. I watched a promotional film and said I would go. Right away I thought it was fantastic.’

  A return of 14 goals in the Kicks’ first season proved that Futcher was anything but second best and he became an instant crowd favourite with his no-nonsense style of play. ‘And in those days I had long blond hair so I stood out. If you mix it, get involved with opponents and don’t back down to anybody, the crowds love it.’

  Futcher’s approach dovetailed perfectly with Willey’s eye for goal, as Luton and Kicks colleague Alan West explains: ‘Alan was very sharp and Ron was the old-style centre-forward, very strong. They were a good combination and both were brave and prepared to get in the box when it mattered.’

  Kicks goalkeeper Geoff Barnett adds, ‘Ronnie was a battler and Alan was a better finisher. You don’t see combinations like that much anymore, with players making runs for each other to create space.’

  Futcher continues, ‘Alan and I became close friends and I really enjoyed our partnership. Alan was quicker than me and I was the one who worked on the flick-offs. We were young and nerveless and were just out there enjoying it. I was getting $300 a week, treble what I was getting back home, and wasn’t worried too much about results.’

  Futcher shrugged off defeat in the 1976 Soccer Bowl – ‘we were pleased just to get there and I got a lovely ring for it’ – and continued to rattle in the goals for a Kicks team that ‘could beat anyone in the regular season but always under-achieved in the play-offs’. After the 1979 season, by which time he had scored 46 NASL goals and had seen his English career progress to Manchester City, he accepted the Kicks’ offer of a three-year contract to become a full-time American-based player. The demise of the Kicks brought that contract to a premature end and saw him heading for Portland, where he scored 13 goals for the Timbers in their final season. ‘After Portland folded I didn’t get picked up so I called Harry Haslam to see if he could put my name about. Lawrie McMenemy offered me a 12-month contract but then Terry Hennessey, who had become coach at Tulsa, called and offered me an 18-month deal. I wanted to get back to America so I took it.’

  At the Roughnecks, where Futcher scored 33 goals in two seasons, Laurie Abrahams became the latest goalscorer to benefit from his teammate’s imposing presence. ‘It was great playing with Futch because he would kick you as soon as look at you,’ Abrahams remembers. ‘He could get wound up sometimes, but he was a diamond off the field.’

  Once the NASL folded following his second year in Tulsa, Futcher returned to play out his career in England with six different teams in eight years. Not many fans at places like Bradford and Burnley realised they were watching a man whose 119 NASL goals had placed him ahead of some of the world’s biggest names in the league’s record books. ‘People thought the NASL was just the Cosmos and Earthquakes and Rowdies,’ he says. ‘I was in Minneapolis, a Midwest town that never got much attention. But if the league hadn’t folded I would have stayed in America. I went to Pittsburgh for a trial for the indoor league but I was still only 28 and had been tapped up by clubs in Europe so I came back.’

  Among those who never returned to England was Paul Child, whose journey to America began when, as a 13-year-old Birmingham City fanatic, he signed for his favourite team’s biggest rival. ‘The club I was playing for as an amateur became something of a farm team for Aston Villa,’ he explains, although he delayed signing as a professional until he had completed a diploma in carpentry. ‘I was a regular in the reserves and when I was 19 the opportunity came to play at the Atlanta Chiefs through Vic Crowe.’

  After two seasons playing for the former Villa player and coach in Atlanta, scoring eight goals in each, Child was offered the chance to return to America full-time. ‘At Villa I was playing with guys like Brian Little and John Gidman, who went on to make it. The club felt I was getting too old and let me go, with the option that if I came back they would get first rights on me.’

  It was the new San Jose Earthquakes who acquired Child’s services and were rewarded with 15 goals. ‘In my first year there I was lucky to be one of the top scorers and they promoted me that way. They took me to every function, promotion and press conference to show me off. I played in golf tournaments in San Francisco. They put me in situations where at first I was very nervous – on television or speaking in front of large crowds. It taught me a lot about selling the game. I must have sounded strange with my Birmingham accent and not the greatest education, but I caught a lot of people’s attention because I was scoring goals and we were selling out stadiums.

  ‘I wanted to show that Villa had made a mistake in getting rid of me. When I had the chance to play against the best players in the world it pushed me to the next level, to be as good as I could be.’

  The 1975 season, when he scored only four goals and lost his place in the team, showed Child that success could not be taken for granted. ‘They had built me up and I put so much pressure on myself. I was expecting to score two goals a game. When the season started I had a couple of bad misses. Even the Michael Owens of the world go through a roller-coaster sometimes. I remember being three yards away against Dallas, having plenty of time, and I drilled it against the bar. Then they started pulling me out of games and that screwed my confidence. But the biggest thing as a pro is learning your strengths and weaknesses. I was not going to dribble around three players; my job was getting on the end of crosses and putting my head in when I knew I was going to get kicked.’

  That approach paid off to the tune of forty-two goals over the next four seasons and Earthquakes colleague Laurie Calloway says, ‘Paul would kick his grandmother if he had to. He was very intense and aggressive and left messages with goalkeepers. He did not have a lot of finesse and he was not one to get the ball down and create something out of nothing, but he was not frightened to stick his head in among the feet. If you had to list Paul’s number one ingredient, it would be heart.’

  Former Villa youth-team colleague Mick Hoban, who had teamed up with Child at Atlanta, adds, ‘Paul was a very physical player, very athletic. He had fantastic upper-body strength. People like Souness, Beardsley and Talbot came to America and were able to go back with a reputation. Paul was in the same ilk, but he loved it here. He was a John Wayne type, knocking people over and picking them up. The Americans could not necessarily see the more subtle things, but Paul would knock down three players in the box and the crowd would love him. In his own community he was a local hero. He was an affable chap, worked hard and did well financially. I think he felt that after making a name for himself in America, he didn’t want to go over to England and start again.’

  As the Earthquakes looked to improve precarious finances, Child, their most valuable asset, was sold to Memphis for the 1980 season, scoring 12 goals for his new team. ‘I was one of those stupid players who was loyal,’ he says. ‘I would have been in San Jose to the end if they had not sold me. In Memphis, I had a chance to sign a three-year guaranteed contract for more than $100,000 a year. I had never known that kind of money. In my first year in San Jose I was on $800 a month. I thought everything was great in Memphis. Charlie Cooke was coach, there were a lot of English players and we had a pretty good team. I was ready to buy a house and the owner decided he was folding the team. I was out on my ear.’

  Child played one more season in the NASL, returning to Atlanta to score 13 goals for the Chiefs. He reflects, ‘I realised I was maybe not going to make it in England so I made sure I became Americanised quickly. It is a shame that a lot of people never realised what I achieved in the NASL and maybe I could have gone back and played regularly in England. But one of the great things for me was when I we
nt back to San Jose recently I met Landon Donovan and Brandi Chastain from the US men’s and women’s teams and they told me they used to watch me. When you are remembered in the places where you played, you feel it was all worthwhile.’

  Child, Willey and Futcher were already established NASL stars when a young Charlton Athletic forward called Laurie Abrahams was signed by former Coventry manager Noel Cantwell for the New England Tea Men’s first season in 1978. The product of a tough upbringing in London, Abrahams admits, ‘I hadn’t looked at football as a career. I had no desire to play professionally at 17 or 18. I liked to play but didn’t think I would like the business.’

  Abrahams’s talent could not be ignored, however, and he progressed from playing for the Ship and Anchor pub in Dagenham, via non-League football, to the books of Charlton Athletic. He recalls: ‘Charlton had a training ground owned by Unilever and one of their companies was Lipton Tea, who had just bought the New England franchise. Noel was there putting the team together and I knew Mike Flanagan and Colin Powell from Charlton, so it was a no-brainer to go when I was asked.’

  After seven goals and ten assists in his rookie season, Abrahams moved to the Tulsa Roughnecks. ‘The Tea Men had a deal that said if I stayed with them they would have to pay an extra amount to Charlton. I had a call asking if I wanted to play in a friendly for Tulsa on tour at Portsmouth. I went down there and met Alan Hinton and Terry Hennessey, their coaches. But it just didn’t work out for me at Tulsa. Steve Earle and guys like that were good to play for. They were very helpful and would teach you things and I was scoring goals, but from a personality point of view I don’t think Alan and I got on very well.’

  Abrahams may not have been happy at Tulsa but he was effective, scoring 10 goals in 13 games before being traded to the California Surf, where he took his goals total for the season to 18. Asked about the secret of his success, Abrahams responds, ‘I think it was any number of things and I am not smart enough to know what it was. One thing was the weather. I found it easier to play in San Diego in the summer than Hull in the winter.’

  The 1980 season produced 17 goals, but after California coach Peter Wall’s departure the following season, Abrahams’s relationship with the club broke down. He finished with only five goals after sitting out most of the second half of the season. ‘In the end they were trying to trade me,’ he recalls. ‘A couple of the management wanted me to play and a couple didn’t. I didn’t want to go and I had a no-trade clause. They started to mess around with me and, in some ways, when people do that I say, “Fuck you.”

  ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play. After a game against Atlanta, there was a meeting at which it was decided that guys had to say whether they wanted to play or not. I wasn’t there and when I turned up a couple of days later I was told I had to tell them if I wanted to play. I said, “I don’t have to tell you that I want to play.” So they said I was not going to play. Then, on a road trip, they said I was playing and I said, “No I am not. You said I wasn’t going to play unless I told you I wanted to and I haven’t.”’

  Abrahams is honest enough to admit, ‘Even my best friends will tell you my attitude could have been better. I would not have stood for my attitude, but then I would not have played the games people tried to play. I have lived with my decisions and suffered from some of them.’

  Wall adds, ‘Laurie was a weird guy with a strange personality and was hard to deal with, but he was as quick as lightning and as good a finisher as I had ever seen. Most people would hate his attitude. He didn’t like to train too hard, but when it came to the big day he would produce. But after a short period of time he would rub you up the wrong way. I spoke to Noel Cantwell and he said he couldn’t put up with him after one season.’

  Cantwell explains, ‘Laurie was a bit of a Jack the lad. He would play well for a week or two and then disappear, then come out with something exceptional. He knew the game, but I don’t think he took the football seriously.’

  California teammate Mark Lindsay recalls, ‘Laurie had been a tailor and he made me laugh one day by saying, “I am going in there to negotiate a new contract. If they don’t agree I will go back to making trousers.” I said, “You are going to leave California to go back to that? Bollocks you are.” In his own way, he was very competitive. He always said what he thought and sometimes that led him into trouble.’

  A second spell with Tulsa under coach Terry Hennessey proved more successful than his first residence at the club, with Abrahams having 28 goals and an NASL championship to show for it. ‘Terry knew what I was like and he didn’t like the way I trained,’ he says. ‘But there are some people you can play for and some you can’t. When I went to Tulsa the first time, Terry called to wish me a good trip and I thought, “What a waste of time.” I didn’t realise it was just him being a nice guy and didn’t understand what good manners were.’

  Lindsay, who also played at Tulsa, remembers Hennessey being close to losing his patience with the eccentric Londoner. ‘Terry said one day, “Laurie, you are the hardest player I have ever had to manage. The minute you stop scoring you will be gone.” Laurie’s answer was, “All you have to do is get those clowns to get the ball to me.”

  ‘Laurie would analyse games so that when reporters spoke to him he could say, “I got two balls in the first half and four in the second half and they were crap. I need better service.” A lot of people take Laurie the wrong way. The first impression is that he is a very harsh guy. He is very blunt, very dry humoured, and a lot of people don’t get past the first five minutes with him, but he is a very nice man.’

  After the Roughnecks ran into money trouble and Hennessey left the club, Abrahams spent the NASL’s final season at the San Diego Sockers, scoring only one goal in nineteen games. ‘A couple of the players there got US citizenship in the off-season and I had to sit on the bench. San Diego was a strange team with lots of factions.’

  It was an unfortunate way for Abrahams to end an NASL career that he looks back on with fondness. ‘I never think about whether I could have been successful in England,’ he says. ‘I get people now who say, “Are you Laurie Abrahams?” and I say, “I used to be.” I was just very lucky to find someone dumb enough to think I could do it for their team. Instead of being miserable about it, I just think about it as being a good time. How many people does that happen to?’

  19. Who Shot the NASL?

  On the second weekend of November 1980 there was only one question on the lips of most Americans: who shot J.R. Ewing? As a television audience of 83 million settled down to discover that sister-in-law Kristen was the guilty party, events no less dramatic were unfolding at the NASL’s end-of-season meetings. But while television’s favourite bad guy lived to continue womanising and waging war on the Barnes clan, the shots being administered to the NASL would ultimately prove to be fatal – even if it was to be a slow, lingering death.

  The league’s problems had been highlighted by the 1980 season, which saw the New York Cosmos win their third crown in four years. That just emphasised the hopelessness that some franchises felt at having to compete with the Warner-backed giants. As the season progressed it became clear that some of the clubs that had joined the league in 1978 were in dire straits. Meanwhile, ABC’s television coverage failed to bring in the required audiences.

  John Best, general manager of the Vancouver Whitecaps, says, ‘The Cosmos were buying the best in the world and it was a problem to some of ownership. The Cosmos situation was not compatible with where the league was at that time. The basic fact was that franchises could not support their payrolls and that was really the demise of the league.’

  Commissioner Phil Woosnam reveals that, for all their on-field success and financial backing, even the Cosmos were in the red. ‘They were losing more than any other team because they were expanding so far ahead of other people,’ he says. ‘They created enormous things for us, but brought a lot of concerns, too. We couldn’t stop them from trying to build overnight but the net effect was t
hat costs and salaries were rising and there were disgruntled people everywhere. Since then there have been ideas like salary caps, but there was no legal way for us to do it then.’

  With the backing of Madison Square Garden, the Washington Diplomats were one of the teams who had attempted to match New York in bringing the biggest names to the US, although their highest-profile signing for 1980, Johan Cruyff, had already spent one season with the Los Angeles Aztecs. His arrival in the Diplomats’ dressing-room gave Gordon Bradley the distinction of being the only man in football to have coached Pelé, Beckenbauer and Cruyff at club level. ‘My approach was that I respected those players and I wanted them to respect me,’ says Bradley. ‘I felt that if there were problems they would sit down and discuss them. They could knock at the door and I would see them there and then because I knew it must be serious. I never for one moment thought, “I am the coach of Pelé.” I just wanted to see them be better than they were and give them every ounce of my knowledge. I was comfortable with it and I think they respected that.’

  Even with ten goals and twenty assists, Cruyff was overshadowed at the Diplomats by the prolific scoring of Englishman Alan Green, whose 25 goals tied for third in the league. Matching that total was Roger Davies, who helped the Seattle Sounders win their division with a won-lost mark of 25–7, a league record that earned Alan Hinton the Coach of the Year award. Davies had followed his former Tulsa coach and Derby teammate to the Pacific north-west, along with full-back David Nish. The signing of Bruce Rioch, and Jeff Bourne’s arrival for the final few weeks of the season, further strengthened the Baseball Ground connection.

  Meanwhile, former Scotland winger Tommy Hutchison, his days at Coventry City nearing an end, was signed to take command of the left flank, providing 12 assists and earning a continuation of his First Division career at Manchester City. ‘The spell in America was a great boost to me,’ said Hutchison, snapped up by City when he lost his regular place at Highfield Road on his return from Seattle. ‘Reputations that have taken years to build can vanish overnight if players fool around in the States. I had no intention of blowing my reputation with a few bad games, so I didn’t regard my trip there as a holiday.’