Author Stephen Brandt joins Protagonist to perform club-by-club retrospective of the original NASL. In Part Five of his look into the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, he traces their move to Minnesota and their final years as a club.

The end of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers was like the rest of the NASL. Instead of losing all their money, the Robbie’s moved their team to Minnesota in December 1983. While Minnesota is a great state, as an aside I went to high school in the Twin Cities, it’s not exactly Florida. Elizabeth Robbie wanted a city that had a suitable building for indoor soccer. The fan support in Minnesota has always been great, but was highlighted by the Minnesota Kicks.

The last year in South Florida they were coached by David Chadwick, one of the original Strikers. It was a move to bring back the glory years. Unfortunately, it was their fourth head coach in seven years. It was their first and only losing year, going 14-16. This strangely got them into the future. They did sweep the Tampa Bay Rowdies, something that had not done for six seasons. The Strikers couldn’t beat the Tulsa Roughnecks at all, and finally bounced the Strikers out in the post season.

The Kicks had averaged just over 30,000 fans per match in 1977, at the old Metropolitan Stadium. It closed in 1981 after the Kicks went out of business. So the Strikers were going to play their outdoor matches in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. While there in 1984, the Strikers only drew 14,263 for twelve matches. It was still a good figure, but this is the mid-eighties. This being 1984, also meant the end of the NASL, as four clubs switched from the NASL to Major Indoor Soccer League. The NASL folded months later.

The new indoor place the Strikers would play in, was the The Met Center, the home of the NHL’s Minnesota North Stars. The indoor version of the Strikers became really good in 1986, when the team made a run to the MISL championship series. The team ran up against the San Diego Sockers, and you don’t beat them in the finals.

Indoor soccer in the late 80s did not really take off in Minnesota. The team was among the league’s worst box office performers. The Robbies finally folded the club in 1988. What publicity they got during the time period was from goalkeeper Tino Lettieri and his parrot Ozzie who would sit in the goal with Lettieri during the games. That was until 1985 when MISL Commissioner Francis Dale banned Ozzie from the games. Up next for the NASL look backs, a long look into the Chicago Sting.

Did you miss the first three parts? We got you!
Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: The Managers

Part 3: The Players

Part 4: The Matches

- by Stephen Brandt