June 17, 1994. A day that many New Yorkers will remember for many different reasons. Lower Manhattan is jammed with Rangers' fans celebrating the Stanley Cup victory with a parade down lower Broadway. The Long Island Railroad is on strike. The only Long Islanders traveling into the city are the aforementioned Rangers' fans and anyone who couldn't take the day off. OJ Simpson, apparently in need of some quiet time, goes out for a leisurely drive with his buddy Al Cowlings in a white Bronco. Dozens of cops follow a safe distance behind, and the whole episode is broadcast live by the numerous TV helicopters following along. World Cup '94 starts, with defending champion Germany taking on Bolivia at Chicago's Soldier Field and later, Spain against South Korea. El Diablo gets red carded almost as soon as he steps on the field against the Germans. There are late goals scored in the Spain game, I'm pretty sure by South Korea. I saw the first game in some Irish bar in midtown; for the second game, I was at the first soccer bar I'd ever heard of, Stephen's Green in Sunnyside. Truly a memorable day.
Knicks were playing that day too. They were pre-empted (where I was watching it) by OJ and that damn white Ford Bronco.
yes, you are correct about that. it was either game 4 or game 5 of the finals in NY. i was watching it in Maryland, and it was preempted by the Bronco "chase" as well.
My how time does fly, seems like just yesterday. My touchstone moment for the '94 World Cup actually occured the following day: Italy v. Ireland at Giants Stadium. It was my first taste of top flight international soccer and one I will never forget. From the loud pro Irish crowd to the National Guard helicopters circling the Meadowlands the atmosphere at GS worth the price of admission alone. I doubt the stadium has rocked like that since.
I was working evenings and weekends, as my firm was defending the LIRR engineers that were on strike, with the radio playing the local Spanish network's coverage of the games: "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"
I was in the Cotton Bowl for the S Korea vs Spain match Spain was up two zip with 5 minutes left and the match ended 2 - 2 Spain left the pitch with clean uniforms to a chorus of boos while S Korea circled the field as if they won the Cup I was 6th row behind the goal and during the pregame got to stare at Tanya Tucker's butt as she performed
Summer job was working down in Walt Disney World watching the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup, Seeing the Knicks in the NBA Finals and seeing the USA in World Cup 94 defeating Colombia 2-1. Also saw Mexico Vs Ireland at the Orlando Citrus Bowl. 2-0 Mexico, as a jewish man was rooting for the Irish.
My favorite memory of that weekend was a game I played in the following day. 0-0 in about the seventieth minute, a teammate played a great throughball to me, I ran into the box, took one touch to get around the keeper, and before I could get the shot off, got absolutely destroyed from behind on a red card PK foul. For one of the only times in my career, I jumped up ready to punch the guy who tackled me. As I moved toward him, one of my teammates screamed, "GO OJ ON HIM!" I started laughing too hard to fight, and the whole other team lost it, too. Game wound up 4-0 partially because no one could take it seriously anymore.
I have great memories of that day also. I had bought tickets for all the GS games years earlier when they first went on sale. The tickets came in for Section 130! They're now framed on my wall. We didn't expect many Irish fans because everyone had thought Ireland were going to play in Foxboro. On June 18th my wife & I started out for Newark Airport to find my father's cousin, who was flying in from Ireland with a planeload of fans. When the plane landed, the 350+ fans learned that they had about 50 game tickets. Instead of a riot, one guy climbed up on the baggage carousel and pulled names from a hat until all the tickets were gone. The rest headed into NYC to scalp. We never found the cousin; I finally met him at the Norway game. I drove to my brother's house to pick up his Irish friend, Pierce, who has flown into JFK from London that morning. We were all singing in the street; the neighbors came out to see what the excitement was. We got to GS hours early with a cooler of beer & food. We partied with some Italian fans. The scene inside GS was amazing; it seemed entirely filled with Irish fans & Irish flags! When the national anthems were played, we realized how few Italian fans there were. The Irish all sang their national anthem, in Irish! The game was exciting, 1-0 for Ireland. After, we continued to party in the lots. There was an advertised party at the racetrack, but we did not want to pay the admission, until we saw the Irish team bus pull up. The coach & entire team got off & went in, so did we. The team area was separated by only tape; many mingled with the crowd. I gave one player Pierce's hat to autograph. It got passed around & half the team signed it. Pierce met the Irish Prime Minister, Governor Whitman & the drummer from U-2! I took pictures and told him "every day in America is not going to be like this". Years later I met the driver of the Italian team bus that day. The guy was Irish! He said that after the game, the Italian coach kept repeating "murder, murder", which was scary. Only later did he learn that the coach was muttering the Italian word for "5h*t".
i was working 2 jobs that summer to go to europe that winter...world cup was in my backyard and i didn't go to a single game...(still taking medication for that atrocity) but i did meet roberto baggio at efinger's in bound brook, NJ (Italy was staing in warren, nj)...the whole italian team was there buying hunting crap and i saw baggio looking at some sneakers! oh and when i got to europe, i saw ajax vs psv in amsterdam and atlectio madrid vs zaragoza!!