Gary Singh’s “The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes” book coming in February 2024

The program says Spartan Stadium but the picture I believe was from one of the local Bay Area High Schools.

The club played at various HS venues from 1989-1990.

The Blackhawks started playing at Spartan in 1991-92.

They played Mexican teams in an exhibition tournament at Spartan in 1993 dropping the Blackhawks and going by the "Hawks'.

Supposedly, owner Dan Van Voorhis nameed the team after his housing development in Blackhawk and when they came back to play in the South Bay, he renamed the team the 'Hawks'.

His hope was to enter the team in MLS but then that fell through after he got divorced , lost money in stocks, and was sued by the Britiania Arms-San Jose Oaks.

The reason Dan Van Voorhis was sued was beause he and Laurie Calloway tried to block fans from coming to watch the San Jose Oaks loss (1 - 4) to Monterrey at Spartan Stadium where only 3-4k fans showed up.

I believe he got sued for $500k from the Oaks but not sure how much was awarded.

 

Katrina deserves every bit of recognition.

 

Here's a program for a game against Cub America at Spartan Stadium in 1992 when the full Blackhawks name was still in use.

 

I actually liked Peter Bridgewater. He was a tough old bastard, but he knew how to run a venue and give the people what they wanted.

 

I was at that game.

It was packed house.

Blackhawks Chinese Midfielder / Forward Townsend Qin was robbed of a goal off a head shotfor an offsides that should have never been called.

The Blackhawks won the game but was eliminated form the Concacaf tournament on aggregate.

 

How about @Gary Singh getting a write up in Soccer America!

SOCCER AMERICA CONFIDENTIAL

Gary Singh delivers a fine gift for the San Jose Earthquakes’ 50th anniversary

by Mike WoitallaApril 23, 2024

“The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes: Momentous Stories On & Off the Field” By Gary Singh (The History Press)

George Best played for the San Jose Earthquakes. As did Landon Donovan, who was born the year Best’s playing career ended.

Their eras with the Quakes were with different leagues. The team has had various owners and name changes, and periods of dormancy since its 1974 inception. But there has been enough of a thread through its reincarnations and re-brandings to warrant 2024 as the San Jose Earthquakes’ 50th anniversary. That includes Gary Singh.



He went to Quakes games thanks to his mother buying season tickets during the NASL era, which ended with the league’s demise after the 1984 season. While a San Jose State student, he worked setting up Spartan Stadium concession stands so he could watch San Francisco Bay Blackhawks games for free. The Blackhawk years (1989-1992) filled the void during the Quakes’ hibernation with enough connections to their MLS future — including John Doyle, Troy Dayak, Jeff Baicher, Paul Bravo, Dominic Kinnear and Coach Laurie Calloway (also a former NASL Quakes player) — that the Blackhawks deserved pages in Singh’s book: “The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes.”

one of the league’s most famous.

The Quakes’ attendance dipped to 11,000 in 1982, Mandaric sold the team, and the new owners rebranded.

“The complete idiocy of renaming the team the Golden Bay Earthquakes didn’t seem to matter as much,” Singh writes. “This was one of the best teams all year [1983] long.” It included former Mexico 1978 World Cup captain Leo Cuellar, goalkeeper Bob Rigby and future U.S. 1994 World Cup defender Fernando Clavijo. Also Englishman Chris Dangerfield, who has been a broadcaster for the Quakes throughout their MLS era.

After the NASL folded in 1984, GM Peter Bridgwater forged ahead, reclaimed the Earthquakes name and founded a competition to provide a stage. The Quakes played in the Western Soccer Alliance until 1988, when the bouncing checks of its restaurateur owner prompted the WSA to grant Bay Area franchise rights to Dan Van Voorhis’ Blackhawks.

Bridgwater promoted international games at Spartan Stadium, which Singh eagerly attended, spearheaded the Bay Area’s successful bid to host 1994 World Cup games at Stanford Stadium, and was appointed president of the San Jose franchise when MLS launched with 10 teams in 1996.

MLS leadership, averse to any links with the NASL, dubbed the league-run San Jose team the “Clash.”



Author Gary Singh flanked by former Quakes players and current broadcasters Kelly Gray (left) and Chris Dangerfield.

Singh’s mother again bought family season tickets for pro soccer in Spartan Stadium while was working on his master’s degree. San Jose hosted the league’s inaugural game and drew the biggest soccer crowd in the city’s history — Spartan Stadium’s addition of an upper deck enabling a crowd 31,683.

The roller-coaster that ensued included the Kraft Group taking over operations for the 1999 season, after which Don Garber, a few months into his tenure as MLS Commissioner, announced at a press conference that the team would enter the 2000 season as the Earthquakes. In 2001, 19-year-old Landon Donovan led the Frank Yallop-coached Quakes to the MLS Cup title. They won it again in 2003.



By then a columnist for Metro Silicon Valley, Singh started watching from the press box writing for the Slide Tackle Magazine web site.

After the 2005 season, the Anschutz Entertainment Group moved the team to Houston where it became the Dynamo. In 2008, the Earthquakes reemerged in San Jose under the ownership of Lewis Wolff and John Fisher. But they played in Santa Clara University’s Buck Shaw Stadium — besides some marquee games at the Oakland Coliseum and Stanford University Stadium, like when David Beckham or Cuauhtemoc Blanco came to town.

“Was this San Jose’s team, as it always had been — and always should be?” Singh asked. “Or were the new owners once again scheming to rebrand the Quakes as a confused confused, quasi-Bay Area conglomeration with no identity?”

Relief came in 2011 when the demolition of warehouses near the San Jose airport cleared the site for the excellent soccer-specific stadium the Quakes would move into in 2015. Now called PayPal Park, it’s now also home to NWSL newcomer Bay FC.

“All knowledgeable fans who had grown up with the game in San Jose understood the new MLS franchise to be a logical continuation of everything that crystalized in the 1970s,” Singh writes. “All phenomena arose due to the coming together of the previous phenomena.”

It’s not a linear 50-year history that San Jose soccer is celebrating this year. Singh reminds us how that makes the Earthquakes especially intriguing.

 

Just got my copy today .

 

Really good summary of the book and Quakes history in a nutshell.