And the best thing was there were more people in attendance that were from San Jose than there were Aztecs fans.
San Jose dominated the league in attendance when the LA Aztecs who had a younger George Best and Johan Cruyff couldn't draw many people at all...
Happy 61st birthday to U.S. international Poli Garcia (pictured with Dave Gillett) , the Southern Californian forward who notched 12 goals and 19 assists in 3 NASL seasons with the Los Angeles Aztecs (1980-81) and Jacksonville Tea Men (1982). Dave Gillett (17), Roy Sinclair, Paul Child (10), Bernie Fagan (15), Adrian Webster (16)Seattle Sounders at San Jose Earthquakes
NASL Action: San Diego Sockers midfielder Julie Veee takes on San Jose Earthquakes defender Mike Hunter.
The other player in that picture, Mickey Cave, was a popular player for Seattle in the 70's and scored the only goal for the Sounders in their 2-1 loss to the Cosmos in Soccer Bowl 77. Tragically, Cave died in 1984 from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, (had started his car engine in the garage and the fumes went into the house) when he was an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh MISL team. AFC Bournemouth's Player of the Year award is named in his honor.
New York Cosmos forward Giorgio Chinaglia is foiled by Washington Diplomats goalkeeper Bill Irwin. Did You know? Despite the arrival of big-money players like Pele, George Best, Franz Beckenbauer, and Carlos Alberto, the average NASL salary in 1978 was $19,000, still far below the average in baseball ($76,000), basketball ($143,000), football ($55,000) and hockey ($96,000). Wage disparity was also a crisis – leading to a player strike in 1979—as Americans made up 45 percent of the players in the league’s 24 teams, earning an average of $12,000 a year, while foreign players earned approximately $20,000 a year. NASL Coaches: Gordon Bradley, New York Cosmos (1971-77), Washington Diplomats (1978-80)
Damn. Wish I had known. Just saw Easy Perez, who's now a local attorney, in court yesterday. Funny story. Yesterday, we were both on separate cases in the same courtroom, along with lawyers on 23 other matters. Easy was sitting in the back row and I didn't notice him until a woman plaintiff in another matter, who had her attorney appearing by phone, showed up in the courtroom and wanted to be heard herself (which is not allowed for represented litigants) and she got rambunctious, to put it mildly, causing the judge to call a recess while the bailiffs dealt with her. (Both the judge and the bailiffs exhibited exceptional patience with her belligerent outbursts, as I will happily testify if the plaintiff follows through with her threatened complaint for judicial misconduct.) As everyone was ushered out of the courtroom during the recess, I saw Easy. But, then, he seemed to know just about every lawyer there. Great guy.