Forgetabout the California Victory, any California Jaguars fans in the hous? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Jaguars
the Sandy Eggo Flash were the best USL team in California AFTER the Jaguars went bust. i copied this from the Soccer by Ives site: I vote for a stadium to built in my hometown, Salinas! Soccer is crazy here - the fields are packed every weekend with people of all ages playing. put it in the East Side, where the real players are. (you know, like baseball stadiums in Brooklyn back in the day http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/past/EbbetsField.htm) that will create some badass soccer players who'll make the national team 10x better! i don't lie. i've played against local kids in high school and against college Div 1 players. these local kids are better - pure unadulterated talent (vs. hardcore training). problem is they dont even graduate for reasons other than soccer. with a stadium here, these kids will be Generation Adidas kids and freakin be amazing on the USMNT! I VOTE SOCCER STADIUM IN SALINAS! Posted by: Leonardo | September 23, 2009 at 03:03 AM dude, Leonardo, there is a soccer stadium in Salinas, where you been? the California Jaguars played at the Salinas Sports Center for a couple years, one time Francisco Marcos even said it was "the best stadium in the USL". the Jaguars started in '95 and they had some great players before MLS poached them all. Ramiro Corrales, Paul Holocher, Jeff Baicher, Paul Bravo, Francisco Gomez, Mark Semioli, Mark Baena... they won the D-3 championship in '96. but they went bust 'cos nobody came to the games... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Jaguars Posted by: California Jaguars | September 23, 2009 at 05:24 AM
I very nearly moved to Soquel (SC County) instead of San Diego. I was all happy that there's at least one NPSL team in that region. But if D-2 ever nationalizes, why not a pro team? Salinas is good and built up, and Santa Cruz and Monterey are pretty convenient, and part of that general area. I'm sorry the Jags are gone. I hope the USL (in whatever form it'll take in '10) can look at the area.
I remember going to the Jaguars games when i was a little kid. I remember when they played on the field behind the now sport complex, it was really fun, but i think they did a bad job in promoting the team to the hispanic fan base which is 100 percent of Salinas.
i think the Jag's were just a little ahead of their time, the 90's were a tough time to get pro soccer off the ground. now the economy is worse but the the recognition and respect for soccer in the media has grown a lot, and i think Hispanic fans are warming to the idea of supporting American teams. now the SanDiego Flash are supposedly back in business wanting to start a West division of USL, maybe Fresno Fuego too. maybe now it's time to BRING BACK THE JAGUARS in Salinas???
hello, anybody out there? are there really only TWO California Jaguars fans in the whole World Wide Web???
goddammit i don't give up that easy... i always had fond memories of USL (or USISL) because they gave me a local team to support, the California Jaguars in1995. they started before MLS existed and the level of play was comparable to MLS in the beginning, and the Jaguars won a championship. after they folded in 1999 i still supported USL with the San Francisco Bay Seals, i remember when they beat the San Jose Clash at Spartan Stadium in the Open Cup. but then they folded too. despite all this i still supported USL with the Seattle Sounders, and they were successful and were promoted to MLS. but now all this garbage with USL-NASL has happened, and i'm revising my history a little bit and i wonder if, rather than helping to grow pro soccer with their regional setup, USL actually stunted the growth of pro soccer by charging so much in franchise fees and not offering enuff support of the teams in return? it's no coincidence so many USL teams went bust. so now i say screw USL, i hope the NASL is successful, maybe they could werk with the NPSL regionally to grow pro soccer and someday the California Jaguars will return and i can have my local team again... just my two cents.
Weren't they they Monterey Jaguars first? Or some other town name before becoming California. I remember they had a great team but couldn't draw flies. It was a major problem for the CA teams in the 90s. I think they probalby have a better chance for a team in the NASL then USL 1. Another area in Clali that I think a team would do well in is Fullerton. You would already have a great stadium to use.
There is one NPSL team, the Salinas Valley Samba, down in Watsonville, South Santa Cruz County. There used to be the Santa Cruz County Breakers as well. Not sure how well either team drew relative to other teams in the NPSL, but that might be somewhat of a barometer fpr an NASL team.
yes i never been to a Samba game. but it's funny Watsonville isn't even in the Salinas Valley, it's in the Pajaro Valley. and 'Samba' is a stupid name, unless they're gonna have a bunch of Brazilian players or something. i wish them success but they're not my team, i want to see the Jaguars return and play professionally @ the Salinas Sports Complex. someday...
I don't really care what they call themselves. It's a soccer team. It de facto represents SC/MRY/Salinas: it's pretty near Salinas and near the county line. If my Soquel move had materialized, I'd gladly follow them.
okay i went home for X-mas and dug up my old California Jaguars game programs for a little reminiscence. checkitout. the Jag's started in 1995 as 'Monterey Bay Jaguars' with an all-star roster of California soccer talent. they won their division but lost to Tony Meola's Long Island Rough Riders in the playoffs. in '96 they lost their top players to MLS but they reloaded, won their division and then won the USISL championship in a shootout over the Richmond Kickers. in '97 they moved up to the A-League, again won their division, but lost to Vancouver in the playoffs. all this time the Jag's had played at various highschool stadiums in the Monterey-Salinas area but in 1998 they moved into the newly renovated Salinas Sports Complex, which Frank Marcos called "the best stadium in the league". i remember going to the season opener there and being really excited about having a genuine professional soccer team in a real stadium to call my own. but for whatever reason the dollars didn't add up and the bottom fell out midway thru the '98 season. the Jag's were forced to sell all their top players and replace them with local amateurs, and they ended the year with and embarrasing 32 goals scored to 95 against. that sucked. in 1999 the Jag's were relegated back to the D-3 league and finished the season with a winning record but missed the playoffs, and then folded. but in those 5 years they won a national championship and helped develop a long list of pro players: Jeff Baicher, Paul Bravo, Ramiro Corrales, Rhett Harty, Paul Holocher, Zak Ibsen, Rick Iversen, David Kramer, Kevin Rueda, Tayt Ianni, Jerome Watson, Randy Mann, Mark Semioli, Francisco Gomez and Mark Baena, the leading goalscorer in USL pro history. pretty good for an expansion team from a small market with no soccer history to speak of. i hope someday soon we can build on this history by bringing pro soccer back to the Monterey Bay, i think the Salinas Sports Complex is an ideal home for a divison-2 or -3 level pro team, if the right ownership can be found and the USL mess can be worked out...
there's talk of a USL-2 West for 2011. with cities in the Northwest, California, and maybe Arizona or Texas there could be plenty of teams, enuff to play a full pro schedule without having to travel east of the Rockies or Texas. that would be cool. this got me thinkin' back to my last post about the 5-year history of the Jaguars and economics of a minor league team in a small market: for the first 2 years they played a regional schedule, and were very competitive and league champions, despite never drawing very big crowds. the third year they were promoted to the A-League and played a national schedule, and again were competitve but the crowds didn't get any bigger with the improved competition. i assume the team owners were losing money every year, i wonder how much greater the expense was to move from D-3 up to D-2? but in the fourth year they opened a new, larger stadium and i'm sure they hoped this would improve profitability, but the attendance was still low, and the economics didn't pan out. the team was forced into a firesale of top players and the Jag's had a terrible year and were demoted after 2 seasons in the A-League, and then folded after a fifth season. the point is, with D-3 pro soccer coming back to the west coast i can see a new Jaguars team being successful and profitable in a regional setup with reduced travel costs. of course they would need to fill the stadium to be profitable, which would requre them being embraced by the huge Latino community in Salinas. that's the hard part. but the Salinas stadium seats 17,000, a lot more than most of the PDL clubs that will make up USL-2 West. a new Jaguars team could be a big fish in a USL-2 West pond despite being a small market, if the right owner could come along and get the community behind the club. that's a big IF. are there any wealthy BigSoccer members out there who feel like moving to the beautiful Monterey Bay Area and owning a new minor league team??? it would be nice to see someone bring back the San Francisco Bay Seals at Kezar Stadium too...
Without an owner, nothing will happen, but... You're better off I think having the team in Santa Cruz, we have heard the argument over and over "if you can get the latino community". It just doesn't happen. they support their teams from home and that's it. There is the youth numbers to support a team in USL 2 for the Santa Cruz County but like all teams it has to be marketed. And with land costing what it does in Cali, you have to assume they'd play in a high school stadium. :-( Great ideas aren't always able to pan out. but its worse to set goals that you reach than setting goals your always trying to reach.
i didn't understand that last sentence. is that what you meant to say or did you get it backwards? ideally there would be clubs in Santa Cruz and Salinas both. that would be a fun rivalry. but that probly won't happen any time soon, and Salinas is more centrally located on the Monterey Bay, and has a bigger population and a better stadium than Santa Cruz.
I remember the Jaguars, and Butler Bob is correct; they were in Monterrey first. California is teeming with talented players and lots of great places absent of a team. The names mentioned such as Salinas, Monterrey Bay area, Fullerton and excellent, plus San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland/east bay, Marin County/Napa, Eureka, San Diego, Santa Barbara to name just a few; all of which could support some level of serious soccer if given a bit of help.
We really need a local team now. I have a better feeling that now is the time to bring the jaguars back. even tough they were not that popular alot of young people still remember that name. Like I said before I wasn't a hard core fan but I still went to watch the games with my friends. I really dont like the earthquakes for some reason, they have no passion for soccer plus they play in that awfful stadium when they could have easely play at the sports complex in which they would not only have a better stadium but also gain more fans from the salinas area.
Somebody would need to rally support from their communities if there is a chance for any kind of team. If the Latinos will support a Salinas team somebody from within them should take a leadership position and create a group to build the team. I also like the idea of Santa Cruz, and Monterrey as well. What a nice little division it would be. Keep the budgets modest and build from the grassroots. California rocks for soccer but it needs more teams
any Richie Rich upperclass folx out there feel like buyin' a USL Pro soccer franchise in Beautiful Monterey Bay, California??? it's 70 degrees and sunny today...
The California Jaguars had good crowds initially but it was pre MLS days. Then when the MLS came around, it didn't last. Salinas, Monterey & Santa Curz Counties just don't support too many sports teams other than maybe some HS or JC's. I'm not sure why really but its just not a good area for sports.