Note: This feature was first published in the Sounders match program and media guide in March.

To some, it’s ancient history. To others, the memories are so vivid it seems as if yesterday.

In truth, it’s been 40 years since they first trotted out the Memorial Stadium tunnel with Henry Mancini’s Salute to the Olympians, now known as their musical theme, blaring over the loudspeakers.

Forty years of Seattle Sounders fútbol.

Much has changed since 1974 yet many traditions have more than endured, growing stronger with the years. Sounders FC may be in its infancy with regard to MLS, but the Sounders’ history is as rich as any club in America, with a penchant for pulling passionate crowds, producing quality players and lifting trophies for four decades.

For those just joining in, you are catching a wave. A huge wave. The Sounders FC level of support, both in terms of shear numbers and noise created, is practically unrivaled in U.S. soccer annals.

However, Sounders attendance levels of the 70s and 80s would’ve also have led MLS on 10 occasions.

With each year, the Rave Green’s roster features more and more homegrown players. But again, that’s nothing new; native sons have been donning Sounders shirts since the beginning.

Furthermore, the connection between club and community has been strong since that mid-Spring evening 40 years ago at Memorial Stadium. From the days of Chursky’s Chicks to today’s ever-growing legion of Emerald City Supporters, there’s a steadfast pact: as long as you play for us, we will shout and sing for you.

To truly appreciate what hath been wrought, one must take a brief trip back in time to see from what seeds this sequoia grows skyward. At times nourishment was plentiful. At times there was drought.

But within the soil the roots were always sinking deeper, growing stronger.

Seattle ‘s first foray into professional soccer may have begun as a misunderstanding. A local group of successful businessmen was probing about the possibility of securing an NFL expansion team.

Representing the group, Walt Daggatt had a chance encounter with Lamar Hunt at the pro football owners’ meetings. Hunt was owner of both the Kansas City Chiefs and the North American Soccer League’s Dallas Tornado.

“(Hunt) said they might want to bide their time by looking into soccer,” says Cliff McCrath. “Walt understood it as a mandate rather than a suggestion.” Daggatt returned to Seattle and quickly convened a meeting of McCrath, the Seattle Pacific College coach, and seven other soccer community leaders. Many members of the group had helped host touring European teams in the past, friendlies which attracted up to 9,000 fans with modest promotion.

McCrath was chosen by Daggatt to dig into the details. What would it take to become successful?

After spending two days looking over Hunt’s ledgers in Dallas, McCrath put together a pro forma, projecting an average of 6,000 fans per game paying $1.41 per ticket, including taxes. The ownership green-lighted the venture and on December 11, 1973 Seattle, along with San Jose and Vancouver, was granted one of eight NASL expansion teams.

Even the most avid proponents of local soccer were shocked by the turnout five months later. “Our first home game, instead of 6,000 we had 12,000,” says McCrath. “By the time we left Memorial Stadium we added 6,000 more seats. It was a fairytale of sorts.”

Sounders publicist Hal Childs coined the phrase Camelot to describe that magical first season under the Space Needle. The connection between fans and players was instantaneous. It never rained on a home game while the lads, as they were then known, took the city by storm.

David Gillett was in the thick of it that inaugural season, wearing the 17 shirt. He and the other players, most on loan from lower-division English clubs, had only hit town a couple weeks earlier.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” said Gillett, then a 23-year-old central defender from Edinburgh. “We would’ve thought 4-5,000 would’ve been good. But when a decent crowd turned up it was obvious someone had done quite a bit of groundwork. Then we won big (4-0 over Denver). So that sparked more interest and we were off and running.”

The original Sounders were solidly grounded. Six of the eight general partners would form the Seahawks’ first ownership group. They were civic-minded and made it a priority to engage and serve the community whenever possible.

Pam Copple remembers taking the reins of her daughter’s soccer team and not knowing anything about the game. Feeling helpless, she phoned the experts. “I would call up the Sounders and ask them about doing a goalkeeping clinic, and (starting keeper) Tony Chursky would show up.” Chursky and about 250-300 kids and coaches, said Copple, who would go on to become Washington Youth Soccer president.

Gillett credits John Best, the first head coach, with setting the initial course. “John picked not only good players, but he put together a team of character, of guys who would go the extra mile and do the extra things,” Gillett remembered. Many afternoons and evenings included player demonstrations and clinics.

Fans responded in kind. After each home game, players and supporters would mingle together at the nearby Center House eateries. “I must have had dinner with everyone in Seattle,” said Gillett. “Everyone was asking us out.”

Handsome, personable and eloquent, Best was the face of the franchise for the first three years. A galvanizing figure on the field was the original skipper, Jimmy Gabriel. “The guys really related to Jimmy,” said Gillett. “He was a famous player and everyone was over the moon he was in the team. He had a lot of good qualities, could really set the tone and change games.”

Midway through the first season, Seattle achieved the first sellout in NASL history. After outgrowing Memorial the club moved to the newly completed Kingdome in 1976, averaging nearly 23,000 the ensuing five seasons.

Newly signed to the reserve team that season was West Seattle’s Jimmy McAlister, just 19. In another year McAlister would earn a starting spot at left back, take NASL Rookie of the Year honors and swap shirts with Pelé following the Black Pearl’s final competitive game.

“There was soccer going on here long before the Sounders came in ’74, and I know some people think these big crowds just started (with Sounders FC),” said McAlister. “They don’t know about the big crowds in the Kingdome. There’s a lot of history here.”

McAlister was the Sounders’ first breakthrough player on a national scale. Best and Gabriel’s reserve program, the NASL’s first, was committed to producing local talent and would spawn several starters and U.S. national team performers, most notably Tacoma’s Mark Peterson, the NASL club’s all-time leader in goals.

Of course, it helped that the Sounders were winners in each of their first five seasons. They reached the championship game in ’77 and ’82, and in 1980 Alan Hinton’s side set a league record with 25 wins in 32 matches while scoring goals (74) in bunches.

Jack Daley, the club’s first GM, says that while championships eluded them, it was not for lack of effort. “You can’t win every game,” says Daley. “We said we’re going to be a credit to our fan base and the city of Seattle. Our credo was to give you 100 percent and we were never going to quit.”

Unfortunately the NASL flag-bearer was New York, and the Cosmos, despite their massive crowds, operated an unsustainable model, even for themselves. In 1983 the Sounders ceased operations and a year later the entire league was gone.

The next 25 years were filled with fits and starts. Fans took refuge with the indoor six-a-side game.

With pregame laser light shows and pinball-type action sometimes accompanied by rock music, the MISL Stars attracted some record crowds to the Tacoma Dome. But again, player salaries and travel costs outstripped revenue.

Soon after the Sounders’ demise, Eastside businessman Bud Greer formed FC Seattle. Greer was committed to keeping soccer alive while focusing on developing local talent. Simply put, Seattle was going organic.

Beginning with a series of challenge matches versus NASL clubs and the U.S. National Team in 1984,

FC Seattle was an experiment to determine whether Americans, and in this case boys from our own backyard, could compete with professionals from around the world. A tour of Britain helped Tacoma’s Brent Goulet earn a contract to play in England.

At the same time, Seattle figured prominently in the launch of the A-League, the forerunner to USL-1. FC Seattle Storm won the Western Soccer League in 1988 with a lineup comprised exclusively of players who had either grown up or attended college in Puget Sound. It was a glimpse of what was possible, but the sport endured it share of struggles.

In a span of 10 years the NASL Sounders, FC Seattle and onetime sensation Tacoma Stars all folded. A costly bid to host 1994 World Cup games at Husky Stadium failed, as did a drive for a charter franchise in MLS. The key missing ingredient to both was a lack of a suitable stadium. A solution was in the works and once again local soccer and football’s fates were intertwined.

With Seattle in danger of losing the Seahawks without a new stadium, Washington’s soccer community pulled alongside, pushing the statewide initiative over the finish line and resulting in the construction of CenturyLink Field.

“When we took down the Kingdome and built this new stadium,” said former state youth president Copple, “this (Sounders FC) was our goal. It didn’t come as quickly as we thought, but it came and that’s what’s important.”

It was also vital that the game continued growing even during this dearth of professional events at which the multitudes might be assembled. An initial dip in youth participation rates following the

Sounders closing gave way to sustained growth. From 1986 to 2005, the number of youth players statewide doubled to some 125,000, with the highest per capita rate in the nation. More than quantity, quality players such as Chris Henderson, Michelle Akers and Kasey Keller came of age. Akers, who would win a pair of World Cups and Olympic gold during her career, admittedly modeled her game on Gillett, the original Sounder.

It may only be a name, yet ‘Sounders’ has always elicited a special feeling of togetherness around Seattle. Alan Hinton knew it. And when he re-launched local pro soccer in 1994, there was no doubt about the club’s name. The original Sounders, he said, “left a very good feeling about what’s possible here,” says Hinton. “The name had value, and in ’94 and ’95 we got it sparking again.”

The new Sounders, combining a rekindled community spirit with many of the best local players of their era, won back-to-back A-League championships in both ’95 and ’96, both teams featuring eight starters from the Puget Sound area. Following in Hinton’s footsteps as coaches were three of his former players, including Brian Schmetzer.

It was apparent when CenturyLink Field (then Seahawks Stadium) opened that a new day was dawning for the Sounders. The kids who have grown up with Sounders games and school assemblies were now parents and coaches, anxious to share, relive and build upon those memories. With two

USL-1 championships in three years, the Sounders had momentum. A venue lay in wait and MLS was set to expand. Soon Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer met with Joe Roth before long and a new era was begun.

“Adrian kept it going and they hit a home run by involving the Seahawks,” offers Hinton. “It’s all come together now. It’s no surprise to me that this city has responded to America’s best soccer returning.

It’s most rewarding for everybody, for all the hard work that’s gone into the game around here for the last 40 years and before that.

“This city is totally wrapped up in soccer and the crowds can grow beyond 44,000 because of the people’s love affair with this game,” he adds. “I believed that years ago, and I believe it now. There’s no question in my mind that one day this club will reach 100 years.”