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I'm glad he didn't come to MLS. That is way too much money to pay someone that will more than likely think it's a vacation here(Gio is not a success).
On ESPN tonight. Best was just an incredible player! "George Best: All By Himself" (the trailer can be viewed here)
He was the greatest player I ever saw live...... I was on the east side near the dressing rooms when he scored his most famous goal. Ray Hudson said the defenders were not anything close to Maldini but they were good players. I read recently that even Gerd Muller who was sitting on the bench stood up applauded the goal and said "George has still got it"! This prompted the coach, Eckhard Krautzun to get mad and told him to sit down and shut up. After almost 36 years, (Wednesday July 22nd, 1981) , that goal never gets old to watch! What a player he was!
Nice goal, but the Strikers had obviously been studying the defensive stylings of the Washington Generals.
I emailed old time Strikers defender Ken Fogarty last night on facebook and he said George scored a lucky goal. But the fact was that that morning, Best rolled out of bed and told his wife Angie that there was no way he could play tonight because he was injured. That was the story he told the press anyway but knowing George and where he was living while in San Jose, I'm pretty sure he was on a drinking binge. He then went to Spartan Stadium looked at all the injured bodies and told coach Jimmy Gabriel "I'll go as long as I can". Not only did he play the whole game, he also assisted on Mustafa Hukic's the Sudden death OT winning goal finishing with 2 goals and an assist in the San Jose Earthquakes 3-2 win over the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. That goal was far from lucky as the confines of Spartan Stadium were very tight and pushed all of the defenders in the middle of the field in front of the goal box. He beat Thomas Rongen twice, Ken Fogarty and John Pot I believe it was. Colin Fowles (who challenged a racehorse in a sprint), was a very speedy defender from Jamaica couldn't contain George either.
I actually worked this into practice last night. I was working on shooting with a few of the kids before practice and I stopped and asked them if anyone knew what happened 48 years ago. Some knew; one of them asked why I mentioned it (You know; if you pay attention, life serves ya up some sweet opportunities.). I said, "Oh, your shooting reminded me."
Probably three soccer fans burned up the phone lines when coverage of that cut into the NASL telecast. (Note: I wasn't born for another couple years. I have no idea if there were even any NASL games that day or if they were televised. I'm just here for the jokes.)
1969 NASL season standings....W L T GF GA .Pts Kansas City Spurs........................10 2 4 .53 .28 .110 Atlanta Chiefs................................11 2 3 46 .20 .109 Dallas Tornado ...............................8 6 2 32 .31 ...82 St. Louis Stars ...............................3 11 2 24 47 ...47 Baltimore Bays ...............................2 13 1 27 56 ..42 I'm guessing the talk was about moving the Spurs to Rochester.
Just looked it up......On 7/20/69, Inter-Bratislava (Czechoslovakia) beat the Kansas City Spurs 3-1 in from 2,282 fans in a friendly match. The game was played in Chicago, IL
I can't find it now, but the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Harry S Truman Sports Complex featured Lamar Hunt (owner of the Chiefs), Ewing Kauffman (owner of the Royals), and the guy that owned the Spurs. Which is totally fascinating to me because I have absolutely zero memory of the Spurs (who - to my knowledge - didn't survive long enough to see Arrowhead completed), despite the fact that I was old enough to have Royals and Chiefs memories that predate the HST Complex. I was alive for both Chiefs Super Bowls, but I was not old enough to remember them. I also don't remember the A's, but I do recall seeing the Royals before they moved into the K. Apparently my parents attended some big international soccer game played in Kansas City in 66 or 67. I think Scotland (or maybe Celtic) played someone. But the big crowd (along with attending the 66 World Cup) apparently is part of what got Lamar Hunt to start the Dallas Tornado.
I wasn't born until a year later in 1970, but didn't the Spurs start out in Chicago before moving to Kansas City.
Yes you are correct. The Spurs started in as the Chicago Spurs in 1967 (NPSL) with Willy Roy.... Chicago Spurs
I won't even bother to try and figure out the points system, but how can it be possible that a team with a 10-2-4 record could have more points than one with a 11-2-3 record? In a 3-1-0 system, Atlanta would have 36 and KC 34, or in the 2-1-0 system it would be Atlanta 25, KC 24. And day-im, those are some big-ass numbers on the front of the shirts--looks like the NFL! That looks like infield dirt the players are standing on,and based on the background, it looks like the original Yankee Stadium. But there was no NY team that year an no other stadium of that time had a second deck starting right at the level of the support poles.
/grabs Colin Jose NASL book 6 points for a win, 3 points for a tie, 0 points for a loss, one bonus point for each goal up to three in a game. Atlanta played at Atlanta Stadium (later known as Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium), which was shared with the Braves, and Kansas City played at Municipal Stadium, which was shared with the Royals, who came into the AL in 1969. The other three NASL home fields in Dallas, Baltimore, and St. Louis were much smaller and weren't shared with baseball teams. Since the stadium in that looks much older than Atlanta Stadium, which was completed in 1965, I'm guessing it was Municipal Stadium in KC. (Then again, if that picture was taken in 1967 or 1968, there's no telling where it was.)
I found this: 6 points for a win, 3 points for a tie, 0 points for a loss, 1 point for each goal scored up to three per game. EDIT: I see ElJefe beat me to it. EDIT II: Sure it's complicated, but that's the kind of ciphering that helped put man on the moon.
And the Chiefs. I believe HST came about because the NFL mandated that all teams needed to have a stadium with a minimum capacity of 55k. Municipal just wasn't that big, and it certainly wasn't worth the effort to exand. The pending AFL/NFL merger put the Chiefs on the clock. The longest game in NFL history was played at Municipal stadium. http://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/the-longest-day/
If that picture was taken in 1967 or 1968, it might've been at Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Generals.
So you can tell the teams, based on a B/W photo and no team logos of any kind? Or you recognize the players? I'm thoroughly impressed. It could be at KC Municipal Stadium, since it was originally built in the 1920s and had poles. Atltanta would have been a brand new stadium at the time, since it was built in 1966 and looked like a lot of the stadiums of that era--stands far away from the field, gradual slope of grandstands and upper deck seats even further away. Anyway, so Kansas City must have won a few blowout games and while Atlanta had the better record, the games they won must have been close or low-scoring. Still a crappy way to decide a champion.
For me, it was process of elimination, which was greatly aided by the fact that the NASL only had five teams in 1969. Three of those teams played in stadiums not used by baseball teams, and of the remaining two, one of them played in a brand-new multipurpose stadium.
Looking through a lot of old Municipal Stadium photos, the above photo does not seem to match the look of Municipal at the time.It's close, but there didn't appear to be that kind of open air seating at the bottom of the upper deck. There were the press box/suites behind home plate and the first base line (along the sideline of football/soccer) was also drop and covered suites. EDIT:
Yeah, there were a few NFL teams playing in smaller stadiums in the late 60s, but most of them had multipurpose stadiums under construction, usually shared with the baseball team. The Chiefs, Cincinnait played in Nippert Stadium (~30-35k), Pittsburgh in Forbes Field (similar size), and the Patriots bounced around from BU (formerly Braves Field), BC, Harvard and even Fenway Park before the original Foxboro Stadium was built in 1971.