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

Speaking of Judd at the meet n greet we asked if he was happy to be out of LA

 

And how did he respond?

 

Just a sheepish grin and he was happy to be here

 

"In San Jose's case, it's all one story."
-- Gary Singh

 

"Spartan Stadium . . . was a dump, but it was our dump . . . it was like our CBGBs."
-- Gary Singh

 

Great interview. San Jose is lucky to have Gary. Not just the Quakes and their fans. A local treasure.

 

Gary Singh acknowledges Katrina Anderson and History San Jose in his new book.

 

I'm enjoying Gary's book. I am an incredibly methodical reader these days, it's pretty pathetic - just bits and pieces at a time, and read slowly. But I'm mostly thru the NASL stuff. Initially I was a little bummed by the year by year format. I thought it might be a little dry. But it's turned out to be great in terms of giving you the whole picture. And in each year there is a theme or narrative or interesting thing that happened. I've learned a lot of things I did not know about the NASL Quakes.

- I somehow had the impression that the NASL Quakes were generally a pretty good team even though they never won a championship. But that was only true of the first few years, and then maybe one year in the 80's after they became "Golden Bay"? But otherwise, they were generally pretty bad, including 2 consecutive 8-22 seasons. And they were even bad when they had George Best. So really it's no different than the MLS Quakes. A few good years and many not so good ones.

- Didn't really realize that the NASL Quakes were an expansion team, and led the league - by a lot I think, in attendance the 1st year. That was an incredible success story, with all of the community outreach that team is known for. They became kind of the model franchise for NASL and those very successful early years probably led to San Jose getting an MLS franchise, among many other factors (e.g. Peter Bridgwater).

- The 1st Quakes supporters groups was called "The Aftershocks", but unlike modern MLS supporter's groups seemed more like a "band boosters" kind of thing or something to use a high school analogy band geeks would get, organizing fan events and things like that. Maybe more stuff outside of the game than in-game support. Not surprisingly they were highly encouraged by the team.

- I did not realize that when the Oakland Stompers started, Milan Mandaric and Johnny Moore and others jumped ship to Oakland. They were a good team and the Quakes were terrible that year but the Quakes beat them on the last game of the season and knocked them out of the playoffs. Then the Stompers folded after one year.

- Kind of like the Quakes had their "Swedish movement" in 2018 with Stahre and Eriksson and Qwiberg, there was a "German movement" in the early 80's(?) for the NASL Quakes. A handful of German players were signed, though it did not amount to much success on the field IIRC.

 

GOOD SEATS STILL AVAILABLE
EPISODE 338: 50 Years Of San Jose Earthquakes Soccer - With Gary Singh
92 minute audio interview with Gary Singh:
https://goodseatsstillavailable.com...f-san-jose-earthquakes-soccer-with-gary-singh

 

I have listened to most of this too. Good interview. The interviewer knows his stuff too.

 

Saw this on Facebook today from the Qaukes inagural home match at Spartan Stadium in 1974!

 

Among the new releases at Recycle Books on The Alameda in San Jose.

 

Great store - that’s my pusher.

 

I used to frequent the place in the past, but, it's been many years since I have set foot in there.

 

It feels like if we have the slightest earthquake it's going down, but I really like that place. Just so many nooks and crannies filled with books. And sometimes cats.

 

They have an entire section (two shelves) devoted to Napoleon, apart from French history (several more shelves)!

 

I find the period between NASL and MLS to be really interesting. This is when the team was really scraping to hold something together. You had Peter Bridgwater trying to hold a team together in the "WSA" with a handful of teams, and earning some $ by hosting international games.

Then in 1988 comes this Tony Amanpour-like guy, Bill Lunghi, owner of the Florentine Restaurant chain(?) and he takes majority ownership with another partner. But it was much worse than the Amanpour thing because while it turned out that neither really had the $, Lunghi actually got control of the team. He needed the Quakes to be cash flow positive and of course that wasn't happening, and then the checks started bouncing. Not long after, Lunghi had disappeared before being arrested for forging checks a few years later.

Bridgwater left to join the SF Blackhawks which wound up being the bay area's WSA team when the Earthquakes went out of business under Lunghi. So the "through line" at that point goes to the Blackhawks and there's debate, as Gary writes, as to whether the Blackhawks are a legitimate "extension" of the San Jose Earthquakes legacy or was there essentially an interruption in the through line there for a few years.

 

Guys like Doyle and Kinnear played for the Blackhawks, so there is absolutely a connection to the Quakes legacy.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Troy Dayak. Wynalda I believe. Another interesting thing. Not sure how long it lasted but there was a women's team called "The Tremors" during those late 80's and Brandi Chastain played on the team when she was 20.

 

Acquired a bunch of Blackhawks programs and other ephemera for the museum recently. The cover on this one is perhaps my favorite because of the photo with houses in background at Kezar. But the program is for a game at Buck Shaw.

 

It's interesting because people complained about the narrow field at Spartan, yet it seemed to be one of the most popular venues for soccer in those times. The Blackhawks initially played at local high schools before settling at Spartan. Also the WSA played the east coast version of the WSA at Spartan in a sort of US soccer championship game in the late 80's. And then numerous international friendles with clubs from all over the world played there. And then of course the MLS inaugural game. And yet ironically, supposedly its unsuitability was the reason we lost our team in 2005.

 

Here’s one for a game at Spartan featuring Troy Dayak on the cover.

 

I think they used Kezar picture as it looked more characteristic with the houses in the background and also a lot more people in the stands than Buck Shaw.