Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Seattle Sounders FC - A Short History of Soccer in Seattle


If you're a fan of MLS, you've probably heard by now that the new Seattle franchise has chosen the name, "Seattle Sounders FC". I like it, although I would have preferred "SC". The name preserves a great soccer history that Seattle has built up over the past 35 years and, in my opinion, is way better than the Star Wars-esque names of Alliance or Republic that were being offered as choices. Here is a brief history of the Sounders and soccer in Seattle.


Seattle Sounders (NASL) 1974-1983

The NASL Sounders also held a name the team contest and “Sounders” was selected as the winning name, beating out hundreds of other suggestions, including “Mariners” .

The First ever major event held in Seattle's "new" Kingdome was a Sounders v. New York Cosmos game in 1976, before a sold-out crowd of 58,128. (Yes, Pele was there)

The NASL team averaged around 20,000 fans in the 10 years they were around.

Get this, NASL Sounders games were carried on major radio stations and most games, both home and away, were televised. What a concept.


Famous Sounders Players from the NASL days

Bobby Moore 1978
-- 108 England caps

Harry Redknapp 76-79
Current Portsmouth Manager

Joe Corrigan 1983
-- 9 England caps

Mike England 75-79
-- 44 Wales caps

Geoff Hurst 1976
-- 49 England Caps

Bruce Rioch 79-80
-- 24 Scotland Caps

The NASL Sounders made it to the Soccer Bowl Finals in '77 and '82, Losing to the Cosmos Both Times.


Well Known Players from the USL/A-League Sounders - 1994-Present

Dominic Kinnear - 1995
Marcus Hahnemann - 1994-97
Brian Ching - 2001-02
Herculez Gomez - 2003
Maykel Galindo - 2005-06


A-League/USL Champions in: 95, 96, 05, 07
Finished top of the table: 94, 02, 07

Sounders League MVP's

'95 Peter Hattrup
'98 Mark Baena
'02 Leighton O'Brien
'07 Sebastien Le Toux

20 First Team Allstars in the last 12 years



Sounders Links

Seattle Sounders Official USL Site
Sounders FC Official MLS Site
GOALSeattle.com
Emerald City Supporters
Seattle MLS Blog

1 comment:

  1. Very intelligent comment. So the Seattle Sounders play in MLF then? Many countries around the world call the sport soccer, it's not really that big of a deal. Get over it.

    ReplyDelete