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United Soccer League (1984–85)

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This article is about the defunct league. For the active league, formerly of the same name, see USL Championship. For the organizing body, see United Soccer League.

United Soccer League
Founded1984
Folded1985
CountryUnited States
Number of clubs4–9
Last championsFort Lauderdale Sun
(1984)
Most championshipsFort Lauderdale Sun (1)
Most League CupsSouth Florida Sun (1)

The United Soccer League was a professional soccer league in the United States in 1984 and 1985.

History

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Background

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By the end of 1983, professional outdoor soccer in the United States was crumbling. Both the higher-level North American Soccer League and de facto second division American Soccer League had undergone a period of ambitious expansion in the1970's, but the majority of teams at both levels had yet to figure out how to translate the attention generated by high-profile players such as Pelé and the recent surge in American youth participation in soccer into stability or profitability for the professional game. Both leagues had been marked by a constant turnover in teams, with multiple clubs folding or relocating after every season. In the ASL, the expansion from the league's long-time base in the northeastern states into the midwest and west coast in the '70s and southern states in the early '80s overstretched the travel budgets its member clubs, who were operating at a smaller scale than their counterparts in the NASL. The league completed its 1983 season with just six teams, most of whom were on shaky financial footing.[1]

When the ASL owners came together in Atlanta for their annual meetings in January 1984, the Pennsylvania Stoners and Oklahoma City Slickers announced plans to go dormant, and Stoners president William Burfeind also resigned as league president. This left only four active teams plus the Rochester Flash, who had planned to re-activate after sitting out in 1983. Despite losing these two teams, the league rejected an expansion application from a group in Fort Lauderdale (hoping to capitalize on the fan base left behind when the NASL's Strikers had been moved to Minnesota two months earlier) because the ASL's by-laws allowed the owner of the dormant Miami franchise to retain rights to the territory of south Florida and voting privileges. At this point the owners of the Jacksonville Tea Men and Dallas Americans decided that the ASL was in a hopeless situation, and they spent the weekend laying the foundations for a new second division league that they hoped would be better organized, more successful at building a grass roots connection between its member clubs and local fans, and more financially sustainable than the ASL had proven to be. Fiscal responsibility, year round operation with an indoor season in the winter months, and measured expansion were a few of the cornerstones on which the organization was to be structured. A league rule allowed only four of eighteen roster spots be taken by foreign players, and a salary cap was imposed on member clubs.[2][3]

Almost immediately, the Detroit Express and the Fort Lauderdale expansion group elected to join Jacksonville and Dallas in the new circuit, to be called the United Soccer League, and Dr. Burfeind agreed to be their commissioner (though he chose not to have the Stoners franchise come to the USL with him).[4][5] In Oklahoma City, David Fraser, who had stepped in midseason to bail the Slickers out of a financial crisis in 1983 but then released his controlling interest following the season after learning that the team was still saddled with significant debt, transplanted the operation to what was, on paper, a new franchise in order to join the league with a clean slate financially.[6] Similarly, staff and players from the Carolina Lightnin' were not out of a job for long following owner Bob Benson's decision to shutter the ASL team in February. An ownership group led by Felix Sabates hired a number of them when they were granted a Charlotte USL franchise in April.[7] Initial excitement for the new league was strong enough that two NASL teams, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Tulsa Roughnecks, considered moving over as well. [8] By late March, Rochester chose to follow the crowd, and the ASL quietly ended operations.

Debut season (1984)

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By the time the dust settled, Tampa and Tulsa decided to stay put in the NASL, and Detroit elected not to field a team due to the new league not being sanctioned by the USSF.[2] This left the USL with three direct transfers from the ASL (the Jacksonville Tea Men, Dallas Americans and Rochester Flash), two teams with new or modified ownership and new names but many of the same staff and players as their recently folded ASL predecessors (the Charlotte Gold and Oklahoma City Stampede), and four new teams (the Buffalo Storm, Fort Lauderdale Sun, Houston Dynamos, and New York Nationals). The clubs were organized into three regional divisions: Northern (Buffalo, Rochester, New York), Southern (Charlotte, Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale) and Southwest (Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston).[3] In keeping with the league's commitment to modest budgets, the schedule had teams playing an imbalanced 24-game slate with 12 games against the other two members of their regional divisions (allowing the road team to travel by bus) and 12 games against the six teams in the other two divisions. They also arranged the schedule to have teams play all of the road matches against the members of another division in one trip so that there were only two stretches just short of a week each during a season that any club might need to travel by plane and stay in hotels between games.[6]

The 1984 season got underway on May 12 and lasted until September 1. For a minor league that had been organized in just five months and had four members that were brand new, this debut season was relatively stable and successful. Several of the teams managed to sign players with experience in the NASL and/or MISL, elevating the quality of play, and a league-wide parity (even the top two teams only managed 15–9 records) produced largely engaging and competitive games.[8] Some troubling signs emerged out of the Northern Division, where all three teams finished below .500. The New York Nationals started 5–0 but then collapsed to a 10–14 record after their head coach and several key players left the club a month into the season,[9] and the Buffalo Storm, whose home field had no lights, routinely attracted small crowds and declined the chance to host a playoff game.[10] But even with these challenges, all nine teams completed their full schedules. Oklahoma City, Fort Lauderdale and Buffalo qualified for the playoffs as division winners, and Houston and Dallas made the field as wild card teams. The Sun, whose roster featured former NASL Fort Lauderdale Strikers players Teófilo Cubillas, Keith Weller, Jim Tietjens, and Ernst Jean-Baptiste, won the league title in a three-game series against the Houston Dynamos.[11]

Contraction and collapse (1985)

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Though the USL survived its first season seemingly intact, the league found itself in crisis heading into the winter of 1984/85. Revenues were not keeping up with expenses despite the league's measures to keep travel and salary costs manageable. The owners were passionate about building up the sport, but almost none of them had the deep pockets and/or patience necessary to persevere through unprofitable early years while they gradually built up a strong network of sponsors, investors and fans. The indoor season planned at the league's founding never materialized, and in February, most teams failed to post a performance bond to demonstrate their readiness for another season.[12] The NASL likewise found itself with only a handful of teams willing to commit to another outdoor campaign, and there were discussions about merging the leagues to stave off the collapse of both. The sides failed to come to an agreement, though, and USL commissioner Burfeind announced that there would be no merger on March 5. By the end of the month, the NASL had abandoned plans for a 1985 season, and Houston had left the USL to be independent while five other clubs (New York, Rochester, Buffalo, Charlotte and Jacksonville) had gone dormant or folded.[2] Only Dallas, Fort Lauderdale (who were renamed South Florida Sun), and the Tulsa Tornado's (who had re-located in December from Oklahoma City and had also been renamed) chose to return. The El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks were added as an expansion team to bring USL membership to a paltry four teams for the 1985 season.[13]

After a hasty schedule re-organization, the league began play in late May with a round-robin style tournament for the "USL Cup" with hopes of attracting more teams to join the league for the second half of its season. Signs of trouble were all around. Commissioner Burfeind resigned just as USL Cup play got underway. The Dallas Americans were forced to offer their players stock options to cover unpaid salaries.[14] Tulsa fell behind on stadium rent and payroll, and the unpaid players and coaches refused to suit up for a home exhibition game on June 6 or travel to Dallas on June 8 for a Cup game.[2] When a new investor group appeared offering to help both the Tulsa franchise and the league avoid collapse, the Tornado's did manage to piece together a roster and travel to Fort Lauderdale to play the final match of the USL Cup round on June 15.[15] The South Florida Sun defeated them 1-0 to clinch the best record and claim the cup. As a harbinger of things to come, there was no physical trophy on hand to present to the winners, causing Sun player-coach, Keith Weller, to quip, "There ain't no cup."[16] No new teams had joined the league by June 22, when the "regular season" was scheduled to begin. The Tornado's/Gamecocks match scheduled for that night was cancelled because the Tornado's stadium rent and payroll issues remained unresolved. This may have been just as well, as the Gamecocks owner had already quietly ended his relationship with the league, paid bills and salaries through the end of the month, and released the players as of then. The Sun beat Dallas 3–1 at Lockhart Stadium[17] on the same day in what would turn out to be the USL's final match. A few days later, creditors locked league officials out of their offices. Play was suspended on June 25, and a few days later, the Oklahoma-based investors who had been exploring ways to rescue the league withdrew their offer, leaving no way for the USL to carry on.[2][18]

The demise of the USL and NASL (which would never realize its stated goal of relaunching in 1986) meant that for the first time in over fifty years there was no professional outdoor soccer league in the U.S. This was a temporary void, however, as the Western Soccer Alliance and third incarnation of the American Soccer League would form and grow in the latter half of the 1980s, eventually to merge into the American Professional Soccer League, precursor to the USL First Division.

Champions

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Year Champion Runner-up League Cup
1984 Fort Lauderdale Sun Houston Dynamos Not held
1985 Season canceled South Florida Sun

Teams

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References

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  1. ^ "American Soccer League (1933–1983)". Fun While It Lasted. December 11, 2022. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e "What can only be described as "Soccapocalypse"". Protagonist Soccer. March 6, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  3. ^ a b [1] "Fun While It Lasted: United Soccer League"
  4. ^ Cote, Greg (February 1, 1984). "United league brings soccer back to town". Miami Herald. p. 1C. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  5. ^ Crossley, Drew (June 3, 2013). "Pennsylvania Stoners (1979–1983)". Fun While It Lasted. Retrieved August 21, 2024.
  6. ^ a b Donovan, Kevin. "Eager Owner Brings Soccer Back to City". The Oklahoman. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  7. ^ monkfromhavana (November 22, 2011). "History of the Carolina Lightnin'". NASLhistory. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  8. ^ a b "The Year in American Soccer – 1984". Soccer History USA – Audio Essays on the Beautiful Game. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  9. ^ Crossley, Drew (February 13, 2014). "New York Nationals". Fun While It Lasted. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  10. ^ Crossley, Drew (March 25, 2022). "Buffalo Storm". Fun While It Lasted. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  11. ^ [2] "Elsewhere: Lauderdale wins USL title", "Santa Fe New Mexican", September 2, 1984.
  12. ^ "Spokesman for former USL team says league not good for soccer". South Florida Sun Sentinel. June 27, 1985. p. 29. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  13. ^ "USL quality will be up, says Weller". Sun Sentinel. April 24, 1985. p. 3C. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  14. ^ Lenard, John (March 10, 2020). "Illustrated History of Dallas Soccer: Part 2". 3rd Degree. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  15. ^ "Struggling Tulsa gets financial boost". The Miami Herald. June 14, 1985. p. 427. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
  16. ^ "Sun Wins Invitational Cup – Wherever That May Be". Sun Sentinel. Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
  17. ^ LaBelle, Frank (June 23, 1985). "Sun Rallies To Get Past Dallas 3–1". Sun Sentinel. Archived from the original on February 17, 2017. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  18. ^ "Elrod Withdraws Office For Tornado's". The Daily Oklahoman. June 28, 1985. p. 124. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
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