Tag Archives: Middlesbrough

FC Seattle, International Friendlies, Know Your History

Brutal Tests, But Better For It

Upon taking the pitch at Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park, the first thing that hit John Hamel was a coin. Probably no more than a 50 pence piece, but it was priceless for Hamel. He picked up the rebound, slipped it into his sock and got back to business.

For a bunch of homegrown Seattle players, the derisive chants, slinging of slurs and hurling of currency was a big deal, but in a good way. It was a rite of passage.

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Jeff Stock, left, was Seattle’s most experienced veteran, having played for both the NASL Sounders and MISL Stars. (Frank MacDonald Collection)

Here they were, a mixture of Americans, amateur and pro, playing in football’s birthplace, its bedrock. They were facing some of the best in the business and holding their own, and they were doing so before a gallery of judging, cutting fans who knew the game, and who cared.

Getting Stuck In

On the field, the natives could be just as brutal. Each match was a battery of tests: Are you good enough, strong enough, tough enough? Each of the two tours, in 1987 and ’88, were concentrated, two-week courses in what’s required at the next level, and the next.

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FC Seattle, International Friendlies

Player for Hire: Shopping Goulet

When DeAndre Yedlin’s name was slotted into the Sunderland team sheet earlier this season, it was largely handled as matter-of-fact news by the Makems. The fact that Yedlin is American was more interesting stateside than Wearside.

After all, U.S. internationals Claudio Reyna and Jozy Altidore had already worn the red and white strip. Dozens of other Yanks paved the way for Yedlin. Going back a generation there had been McBride and Dempsey and Hahnemann, before that Moore and Harkes and Friedel, with Kasey Keller breaking ground as Millwall’s first-choice keeper in 1992.

Maybe, just maybe, those once-startling signings were made a bit more palatable for the partisans of Millwall, Fulham, Spurs and Sunderland by preseason visits of an American club virtually unheard-of in the U.S., let alone in Britain.

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Coach Tommy Jenkins goes over his notes prior one of the UK friendlies. (Rick Blubaugh)

Unlike Any Other

When FC Seattle landed in London, they were unlike any U.S. touring club before or since. Lamar Hunt’s Dallas Tornado had globe-trotted to announce the NASL’s existence in the Sixties. Warner Communications cashed in on the worldwide popularity of Pele´ in the Seventies, much like the Galaxy selling Beckham shirts more recently. In the Eighties, the San Jose Earthquakes accompanied George Best on his farewell tour of Britain, and other NASL clubs paid preseason or postseason visits.

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FC Seattle, International Friendlies

Paving the Way for Americans Abroad

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International friendlies have been foisted upon the American soccer public for generations, but rare has been the occasion of a U.S. club traveling and playing abroad.

One club bucked that trend and did so when U.S. outdoor soccer was at its nadir. It was not about building a brand or selling so many tickets as much as it was exposing football’s home to an emerging product line: the American player.

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Coach Tommy Jenkins, center, and GM David Gillett, right, put together the 1987 tour, using their Sounders connections. (John Hamel)

Football Club Seattle seldom gets its due when discussion arises about soccer’s renaissance. Yet when North American professional clubs featuring a foreign nucleus were dying left and right, FC Seattle led a movement of fielding teams of primarily native-born talent. When the NASL and ASL were closing shop, FC Seattle forged a new league that, 30 years on, has grown into the established USL. And when British players and coaches stopped coming to our shores, FC Seattle took the game to them.

This is the tale of two summertime trips to face English and Scottish sides and how those sons of Seattle now view the experience a generation or so later.

State of Affairs

In 1987, the American soccer landscape was comparatively barren. The only action affording a livable wage was indoors with the MISL or second-tier AISA. Up north, the top-tier Canadian Soccer League was getting underway outdoors following Canada’s qualification for the 1986 World Cup. South of the border, where the U.S. National Team had not qualified in 37 years, the sole ‘professional’ outfit was the six-team Western Soccer Alliance.

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