Features regarding the NASL Sounders era (1974-83)
That’s right, before he first exclaimed “Touchdown, Washington!” came shouts of “Goooooooal, Sounders!”
Back in 1979, when KOMO AM-1000 added soccer to its stable of UW football and basketball, Rondeau stepped up to the mic with no experience in play-by-play and admittedly little knowledge of the game.
“I knew less than nothing about soccer,” says Rondeau. “I didn’t know a soccer ball from a cue ball.”
“Up until (1974), as far as we knew, no one had broadcast soccer in America on a full-time basis,” remembers Robertson. “It hadn’t been done, other than a championship game in a small market. So we were pioneering.”
Robertson more than just broke ground. Already an established, respected pro, he helped grow the game’s audience and crowds with his rapid-fire, no-nonsense delivery, and he did so in a much more challenging environment that exists today. Robertson not only was the first, his tenure surpasses all followers, and he helped create a Sounders staple that thrives to this very day.
Unexpected Soccer Savvy Continue reading A First & Lasting Impression
Yet we Rave are a greedy fan base. Can’t help it; the Sounders made us this way. Six playoff berths plus five trophies in six seasons does that. This year, we were told, the objective was once again qualify for the postseason and then eliminate all in our path, an MLS Cup triumph making it truly a December to remember.
Technically, that plan’s still good to go. Seattle clings to the sixth and final playoff slot in the West. However, given a league-worst form of five straight losses and Houston’s game in hand, it’s hardly an iron grip. More like a fingernail dug into a ledge.
A three-match home stand featuring visits by Sporting KC, Colorado and the Red Bulls presents no rollovers as they are a combined 3-3-9 on the road. The low-riding Rapids are actually unbeaten (1-0-4) and miserly (2 GA) away. Go figure.
Of course fans will settle for nothing less than nine points, preferably with two of the games lighting the flames on multiple occasions. Historically, that’s not too much to ask.
Each of the past two seasons Seattle has taken all the points from three-match stands, scoring eight times a year ago against Colorado, Philly and Dallas. That started a string of six straight home wins and set the Rave on a course for the Supporters’ Shield.
While it’s definitely not HiDef, videotapes from NASL broadcasts during the Seventies and early Eighties are in many ways more telling than any prose. If pictures are worth a thousand words, actual match footage is the closest anyone will get to a time machine.
Dave Brett Wasser has spent 20-plus years unearthing these forgotten volumes and now has amassed and converted to DVD more than 450 matches from the days when Sounders, Whitecaps and Timbers first roamed the turf.
It’s the most comprehensive collection of vintage soccer Americana anywhere. For a nominal fee ($12 per game; $10 each for five or more) Wasser has distributed worldwide copies of games featuring countless combinations, from the original, star-laden Cosmos to the short-lived, enigmatic Las Vegas Quicksilvers.
Where else would a 17-year-old, soccer-crazed kid find himself on a Saturday evening in spring but in the basement of his grandmother’s house.
If there was a party, it could wait. Besides, the good ones are just getting started around 10. That would provide ample time to arrive fashionably late. But enough about that and back to the basement.
I loved my Grandma Sadie dearly. Loved mowing and edging her expansive lawn and joining her for lunch afterward on Saturdays. However I must confess that when I returned for dinner later this particular night, it was mostly for the cable.
Yes, honestly cable TV was the attraction. It was 1977 and this new innovation that provided a clear picture and double the number of channels–like 10 altogether–was only available in Centralia’s downtown area, and not up on Seminary Hill where I lived. Located approximately halfway between Seattle and Portland on Interstate 5, Centralia was ideally situated to get both cities’ local affiliates via Craig McCaw’s (look him up) fledgling cable company. Up on the hill, our rabbit ears arrangement afforded only a grainy glimpse of the Seattle channels. Continue reading A Comeback for the Ages
Leafing back through time, those who have constructed tifo-worthy Seattle careers have largely done so through earnest effort, tenacious battling, artful orchestration and as fearless saviors. But of course, the most golden of moments is when the ball billows the back of the twine, and the crowd goes wild. Glory beyond compare awaits those who score goals, and the bigger the occasion, the more splendid the finish and the more goals, the better.
Here, then, going into Sunday’s match with Portland, are Seattle’s golden boys of Cascadia, era by era, over the past 41 years:
NASL / Sounders, 1974-83
Cascadia goals: Peter Ward (6); John Rowlands (5), David Butler (5), Paul Crossley (5), Mark Peterson (5)
To many, even seven years ago, any alternative seemed sacrilege. On March 25, 2008, newly christened and generically dubbed MLS Seattle put its to a public vote. They asked fans to choose between three nickname options: Alliance, Republic or Seattle FC.
While locals associated ‘Sounders’ with professional soccer’s storied Seattle history, in the upper reaches of MLS the name was met with resistance. Nostalgia was well and good, but this was a new team in a new league and it was best to make a fresh start. At least that was the wisdom coming from league brass.
For those of us who shivered in ones and twos at Renton Stadium back in the day, the notion of Sounders 2 opening before a big crowd is only one of the reasons our minds are blown.
To think that S2 and its fellow MLS reserves are part of respectable national league, complete with playoffs, and attracting more fan interest than the soccer equivalent of geeky baseball scouts with radar guns and stopwatches, is yet another sign of the thriving times in American futbol.
Reserve programs playing in the USL (formerly USL PRO) have now outstripped their parent clubs for the number of incarnations that have come and gone over 39 years. Their purpose has shifted from time to time. However when attached to a top-tier club, the focus has always been about producing talent, and that has not changed.
Continue reading Reserves Packaging Much Improved, But Barometer Remains Same
The Quakes, who come to the CLink for the 57th meeting with Seattle on Saturday, were the first foe that the Sounders and the fans learned to hate. Of course, breaking a favorite’s leg will do that.
Our wayback machine takes us to Memorial Stadium on the evening of May 19, 1974. Knotted at 1-1 in the 78th minute, Seattle winger Pepe Fernandez latches onto a loose ball at midfield and drives toward the west goal.
Fernandez, a former NASL MVP, has won over fans in the first three games of the Sounders’ existence with his close control and ability to make plays. His corner kick to John Rowlands had opened the scoring.