Category Archives: Know Your History

Seattle Seeing Red

What’s been Rave and white and red all over? Ah, that would describe the inauspicious start to the Sounders’ MLS season so far.

Two games, two red cards; no goals, no points. Even for historically slow-starting Seattle, this is a bit unsavory for the faithful. But when referees are showing cards, might as well go all-in. In other words, let’s dive in to an anecdotal history of notable Sounders walks of shame.

First Impressions

In the beginning, there was Dave D’Errico. Seven games into the original Sounders’ existence and, personally, just his second appearance, top draft pick D’Errico decked Toronto’s Gene Strenicer. It did not go undetected. While D’Errico sat in the locker room, Davey Butler scored late to give 10-man Seattle the road victory.

Tommy Jenkins no sooner arrived in Seattle than he saw red flash before his eyes.

Newly-imported from England, Tommy Jenkins was billed as an elegant playmaker to support Geoff Hurst. Yet when the pair debuted in 1976 at St. Louis, Jenkins introduced himself to the NASL by getting stuck-in, way in. He saw red then, but never again in his four seasons. Three other openers were marked excessive force, most recently Tony Alfaro’s double yellow versus LAFC.

Early? You want an early shower? Leo Gonzalez had barely broken a sweat in Columbus before his seventh-minute sending off in 2013. You probably don’t remember that; instead that game is best known for Eddie Johnson’s winner, celebrated by his ‘show-me-the-money’ mime.

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Mike Ryan: Seattle Soccer Is His Legacy

Note: This originally ran in The Seattle Times shortly after Mike Ryan’s passing, on Nov. 28, 2012.

Today’s local soccer landscape is associated with Hope Solo, Sounders FC and, yes, large, loud crowds. Yet to reach the zenith and become the continent’s capital of the sport required a huge amount of underpinning.

Mike Ryan was the first coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Several unsung individuals have served as pillars, and none played a more prominent role than the late Mike Ryan. From his arrival in Seattle 50 years ago to his passing last week, Ryan went about building a foundation spanning virtually every area of the sport. Whether it’s youth, college, women’s or professional soccer across Puget Sound, you will find his handiwork.

“Mike did a world of good and Seattle soccer is his legacy,” says Jimmy McAlister, one of Ryan’s star pupils, a breakthrough professional and now Seattle United coaching director. ‘There are a lot of legendary players for the (original) Sounders, but we didn’t get this started. The cornerstones of this success were guys like Mike Ryan.”

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View to a Kill

[Part One] Guatemala City’s Estadio Mateo Flores is a classic, midsize, nondescript bowl, with the playing field surrounded by a running track. The participants enter through a tunnel at one end.

In October 1996, Estadio Flores had drawn world attention for all the wrong reasons. Counterfeit tickets and breached entrances resulted in an estimated 60,000 fans jamming into the facility for a World Cup qualifying match between Guatemala and Costa Rica. Mateo Flores capacity was listed at 45,800. The crowd surge began one hour before kickoff; eventually the stampede resulted in 83 dead and 180 seriously injured.

By the time the 1997 Champions’ Cup was held, further security and crowd control measures were in place, and pale blue plastic seats had replaced the concrete terraces, reducing capacity to 26,000.

Awaiting the Seattle Sounders at Estadio Flores on this hot, muggy, summer Sunday afternoon was Mexico’s star-studded Cruz Azul, seeking its fourth Concacaf Champions’ Cup title but the first in 25 years. La Maquina (The Machine) needed a victory versus Seattle to secure first place in the group and, thus, lift the trophy.

There may have only been an inch of copy in The Seattle Times, but in Mexico City there was no missing the score.

For anyone associated with the already eliminated Sounders, a sense of foreboding would be understandable. Yet as Preston Burpo and his teammates made their way through the tunnel entrance, their spirits were lifted.

“I’m a big believer that any game you walk into, you can get a result,” states Burpo. “When we’re walking out the tunnel, all the local fans were rooting for us because if we got a result against Cruz Azul, then (host Comunicaciones, playing Necaxa afterward) had a real chance to win.”

Positive Thoughts at First Continue reading View to a Kill

Bury the Score

Sitting in his living room, watching the catastrophic match unfold on the TV, Neil Megson had a growing feeling this would be his last day as head coach of the Seattle Sounders.

This was his team being shredded, gutted and embarrassed before its biggest audience and on the greatest stage to date.

Megson’s father, a former coach himself, sat with him, staring at the screen in shock. Neil broke the silence.

“Holy s***. Holy s***,” he repeated. “I think I’m going to get fired in the morning.”

His father, Don Megson, went further, stating, “You deserve to get fired.”

Neil Megson, Seattle’s player/coach, was obligated to coach the A-League West All-Stars rather than take his team to Guatemala.

If Sounders lore could bury a single score line from the past 44 years, certainly this selection would be weighted heavily. There are many reasons, the 11-nil beating being first and foremost. However, there’s more to it.

In some ways it was Exhibit A of where American professional soccer existed in the mid-Nineties; the scarce resources, skewed values and naiveté. It’s also a story of the Concacaf Champions League’s past and Seattle’s first encounters with Mexican powers and playing abroad. Stir it all together and it’s one hot mess, even if some failed to recognize it at the time.

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A Royal Visit

Even by standards 50 years ago it was a modest match day program. Yet it matched the surroundings and, some might say, the fare that was on display that afternoon.

Still, it was a start. Turning the page, maybe spectators took pause from watching the stocky, commanding figure standing astride of the benches, to let the significance of the day soak in.

In a simple font, probably prepared on someone’s personal typewriter, flow the words: “We are sure that this game will be a milestone in the history of soccer in our state.” It goes on: “It is with pleasure and a feeling of satisfaction we are able to act as hosts to the first all-professional soccer game held in our state.”

West Seattle Stadium’s main stand is virtually the same as 50 years ago, when Vancouver met Bonsucesso.

It’s actually easy to picture the setting today. West Seattle Stadium sits virtually untouched, not only in the 50 years since but the 80 since being erected. The main stand, wooden and covered, could serve as a stunt double for a mid-20th Century British ground. The weather on that February 11, 1968 was practically spring-like: Bright sunshine and mild temperatures after a cold, soggy start to the new year. The grass is a bit long and ungroomed while the ground itself is soft from repeated rains.

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Wee Willie: The First Name We Heard

So many pieces fell precisely into place, it’s not surprising that the Sounders’ very first season came to be known as Camelot. A huge opening night turnout, the immediate and steadfast bonding between enthusiastic new fans and deeply appreciative and earnest players.

It was beyond what anyone had hoped for, in terms of both wins and bottom line, but also in laying a firm foundation for everything that has been built in the 44 years since. Today, comes the story of a somewhat forgotten figure who, in retrospect, casts a much larger shadow than his diminutive frame or equally slight statistics might suggest.

As is too often the case, we duly recognize people too late, after they have passed. Unfortunately, that is the context of sharing these memories of an original Sounder who died thousands of miles away from Seattle on the Friday before Christmas.

His historic first Sounders home goal came just two minutes into the inaugural Memorial win over Denver. (Frank MacDonald Collection)

Willie Penman is a name with which you should become familiar. When you next thrice bellow the name of a goal scorer, know that Wee Willie was the first to send a Sounders crowd to its feet, the first to feel the rush of sound and energy follow the ball into the back of the net. It’s as simple as this: Penman scored barely two minutes into the first Sounders home match. And the rest is history.

A True Original

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Soccer in Puget Sound: It’s Rarely a Holiday

If your idea of a perfect winter holiday is to while away the hours watching live top-class soccer, you best not live near Seattle.

Among native Puget Sounders, perhaps only octogenarians can speak of such an experience in their lifetime. As we take a view to scores of frigid, rain-swept Premier League matches pressed into a cramped calendar, we can only surmise that long ago someone came to their senses and simply said, No more.

Most state league games through 1920 were played on playfields with little grass and no seating for spectators, who ringed the pitch.

Who knows, someday MLS may conform to the FIFA time table. But a look back at the last century or so illustrates why playing through the winter is problematic in Cascadia and downright impossible in the majority of MLS markets. New Year’s Day 2018 forecasts 12 of those cities mired in sub-freezing temperatures. Montreal’s high is predicted to reach minus-6 degrees F.

But enough about MLS. This is more a story of the hardened souls (masochists, some might say) in Seattle’s long-ago past who truly played for the love of the game and the sense of community it fosters, and did so in some of the most trying of circumstances. This is a tale of how and why our forefathers once tread the less-than-firma terra during the short, bleak and, yes, festive days of winter.

Holiday Bonus: Another Play Date

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Everything Must Go

It was a seminal moment in the shared experience of Seattle area soccer history. To the casual observer it would’ve appeared to be American boys run amok. To Walter Schmetzer, however, it was the inspiration that would launch a business of 43 years and probably thousands of stories.

Forty-some years before Brian Schmetzer delivered an MLS Cup to Puget Sound, his family’s name became synonymous with quality soccer goods dispensed on Lake City Way and, more recently, Aurora Avenue. Schmetzer’s Sporthaus helped outfit generations of players in a region gone mad over the game, until closing the doors for good earlier this month.

This Lake City Way location is most closely associated with Sporthaus Schmetzer. It served as the flagship store from 1976-2012. (Courtesy Schmetzer Family)

One of the first such stores in the Northwest, Schmetzer’s was the region’s longest-running soccer shop. It preceded premier academies and every women’s collegiate program in the state, and thrived while multiple professional clubs fell by the wayside.

At its essence, Sporthaus was a family business dedicated to delivering exceptional equipment and service to a demanding demographic. It was not always easy, and shrewd stewardship from two generations of Schmetzers proved to be the essential ingredient. While its closing after nearly 43 years may make some wistful, it leaves behind a mass of memories, beginning with Walter Schmetzer’s recollection of a summer day in 1974.

Pursuing a Vision Continue reading Everything Must Go

Brand Him A Sounder

He commenced his career in Toronto, played for Canada’s Olympic and national teams, and has made the Great White North’s largest city his home. And yet on Saturday, despite never setting foot in CenturyLink Field, Jack Brand will bleed Rave Green.

“Some of my friends will curse me for that,” says Brand, “(but) my heart is with Seattle.”

It’s not so much the quantity of time Brand spent in Seattle in his earlier years. Rather, it is the quality of that tenure. He was part of something truly special, both in Sounders lore and the rebirth of the game with a semipro club comprised of local lads.

Jack Brand (Courtesy Brand Family)

Brand, now 64, presides over his family’s business, based in nearby Mississauga. The Brand Felt Ltd. manufactures industrial felt for a multitude of industries, exporting worldwide. The German-born Brand, at 17, was sent abroad by his father, company founder Klaus Brand, to study in New York state. Although he had played for then-West Germany’s youth national team, his father forbade him from turning pro at the time.

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And Sometimes You Draw

Midway through Bull Durham, pitching protégé Nuke LaLoosh scrambles up the bus aisle, bellowing his newfound appreciation for learning. He’s in the midst of a winning streak and finds it addictive.

“I love winning,” he exclaims in the ear of mentor Crash Davis. “You know what I’m saying? It’s like better than losing.”

Moments later Crash begins a crash course lesson on baseball clichés, among them, “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And sometimes it rains.”

Not all draws are equal, evidenced by the added time comeback in Portland early in the unbeaten run. (Courtesy Sounders FC/Charis Wilson)

If ever they flip the premise to futbol (the reverse of Jimmy Fallon’s Fever Pitch), that particular cliché will require reworking. When it comes to the Simplest Game it’s a little more complicated. More like: “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And sometimes you draw.”

The latter fact is all too topical at the moment in Sounderland. By match day in Utah versus RSL it will have been more than a month since the Sounders lost. Or won.

Fit to be Tied

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