Plaque at SAP Center honoring Paul Child as member of San Jose Sports Hall of Fame. John Doyle to join him soon.
Which is basically what Lew Wolff wanted Avaya Stadium to be (my thanks goes to whoever it was in the San José City government that, after looking at Wolff's original plans, basically replied "Nope, come back with something better!" ). GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Back story: The late Palo Alto mayor and Quakes fan Gary Fazzino sat on the San Jose Sports Authority board and pushed hard for Child's induction. He asked to have loaned History San Jose's Paul Child NASL Quakes kit to bring to a board meeting as a prop when he made the pitch for induction.
I attended that first game in the Kingdome. Another one of those events that remains a very special experience.
That's 1980 at the Kingdome. I was likely at that game, since I saw nearly every Sounders home game that year. Sounders #20 is the great Tommy Hutchison, who only played one year on loan to the Sounders from Coventry City, but, it was the year the Sounders went 25-7 and Tommy was an integral player on that team. Hutchison was a 33 year old left winger at the time, known for his pace and dribbling, and so impressed that year that he was signed by Manchester City and infamously scored both goals in a 1-1 FA Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur. He played professionally until he was 43 years old.
I always liked his fun loving approach to the game. I remember one game where the Ref was trying to emphatically yellow card someone, only to fumble it coming out of his breast pocket. Bernie picked it up for him and laughingly fumbled it as well. Funny stuff. I'll also never forget when for some reason, he hit a ball from midfield, dangerously close to the Quakes goal. I remember, as the ball flashed just wide of his goal post, the look on Chris Turner's face like "What the HELL was that?"
1979 was the season where I had the opportunity to travel with the team to a few away games. One time, it was a two game trip east, playing in Chicago during the week, then a weekend game (I think a Sunday evening) at the New York Cosmos...a very muggy August night there. I had already made trips with them to Portland, Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale, so most of the guys knew who I was, as I always was them on the team bus and at the hotels. The practice balls were stowed in net bags were always deflated during travel. As we exited the bus at the new Holiday Inn in downtown Chicago, Bernie grabbed one of the deflated NASL balls and put it on my head....saying "HA HA, the king of soccer". For some reason, I have remembered that for all these years. That was a fun summer for me.
I was young but from what I could tell, Bernie Gersdorff was a happy player and always smiled. I think he along with all of his German patriots were just enjoining their time in California. I'm friends with his daughter on facebook and he always talks about is time in San Jose and still loves the Earthquakes.
One of the few times that Bernie lost his cool...it happened because he got frustrated at his own teammates. It might have happened not long before he was shipped away to San Diego.
Interestingly, Davis played a single season of college soccer at Santa Clara University. Unlike today , college teams entered youth tournaments in those days and while at Santa Clara, he was a member of the Broncos team which took the U-19 National Open Championship (McGuire Cup)…. NASL National Team: Gary Etherington, USA NASL Legends: Parviz Ghelichkhani