Now we get to the next team for the NASL look back series. To be fair, I had a completely different team I was thinking of for our next one. I was leaning towards going up the gulf coast to Atlanta through to the Texas teams, Tulsa, and getting all the California teams. I might also do one final section with teams like Team Hawaii, Team America, and stuff like that. However, I was looking at something in Pennsylvania, and got in real deep looking at the Philly Soccer Page. Obviously, that led me to the Philadelphia Fury.

They were the one interesting club, but were more like the league and society at that time. We could call them the Philadelphia Rockstars, since they were owned by a conglomeration of rockstars and managers. They were brought into the league during the massive expansion of 1978. This team should have been a massive success, with how good soccer is in the city. They were replacing the Atoms, a club that had helped start the league. However, the Fury was everything that was wrong during that later part of the NASL.

Philadelphia was a hotbed for soccer at the time. The Atoms were the first champions of the league, but limped into the 1976 season with very little money. Tom McCloskey couldn’t find anyone to buy the club, so he folded the team. There was a group with CD Guadalajara, but they weren’t able to come up with the money to save the Atoms. The franchise was transferred in 1977 to San Antonio where Bobby Moore would end up playing. Without having a team in Philadelphia in the 1977 season NASL Commissioner Phil Woosnam went looking for a new ownership group to expand back into the City of Brotherly Love.

The investors, Woosnam found were: Peter Frampton, Paul Simon, Frank Barsalona, Dee Anthony, Peter Rudge, Terry Ellis, and Chris Wright, and Jerry Moss established the Fury on November 15, 1977. They brought into the world one of the best logos of all time. Many former Atoms players and front office personnel came back to work for the new club. The first connection to the Atoms was their former general manager Bob Ehlinger, who left his job as the NASL Deputy Commissioner to take the same job with the Fury. First he brought back former Atoms captain Derke Trevis, who had two very unsuccessful stints as player-coach with the San Diego Jaws and the Las Vegas Quicksilvers.

Ehlinger’s plan was to build a team around Philadelphia area players, and three to five years be great. That was what made the Atoms so good in 1973. With that goal, they drafted Levittown Pa native, and Penn State graduate Rich Reice with the first pick in the 1978 NASL Draft. They also picked Rancocas Valley High School, and Mercer County College player Pat Fidelia. They filled out the roster with several free agents with local ties, like Florian Kempf, and goalkeeper Dave Bragg. Some of the former Atoms came back as well: Bill Straub, Brooks Cryder, and goalkeeper Jim Miller.

The first year proved that an NASL team could no longer just use local talent, with some journeymen English players. You needed to get some established great players, and with the deep pockets that the ownership group had, they could go shopping. So who did they go for? Chelsea legend, and top goal scorer; Peter Osgood, 1966 World Cup Winner for England Alan Ball, and former Leeds United star Johnny Giles. To round out the side, goalkeeper Keith MacRae, Tony Galvin, John Dempsey, Fran O’Brien, Eddie Byrne, and Pierce O’Leary.

They also brought in a new manager, and not an old man. It was 37 year old Richard Dinnis, who was fired after only five months of leading Newcastle to a middle of the table finish. On paper the Fury looked really good even in the American Soccer Conference. They had to deal with very good teams in the Eastern Division like Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. The Fury began their first match of the 1978 season on April 1 at Veterans Stadium against Washington in front of 18,191 spectators. Though they did lose big 3-0.

This was because Alan Ball, Johnny Giles, and Keith MacRae hadn’t reported to Philadelphia yet, since their English seasons hadn’t finished yet. What they were also going to understand in the long run, was that Peter Osgood for all the hype was done as a player. He had chronic ankle problems, and did not score until the seventh match. That would be the only goal he scored in his 22 matches.

As the season progressed, the big names started to show up for the Fury. Ball and MacRae showed up during the fifth match. By the time Giles came stateside the Fury were in the basement of the Eastern Division with a 5-5 record. By mid-June it was obvious that Richard Dinnis was a disaster as the manager. He left, either fired, or quit, and it turned out, he never played the sport. He only had five months experience as manager, those he spent with Newcastle. Richard couldn’t count to two, as there always needed two North Americans on the field at the time.

So in came Alan Ball as player/coach. And this did not help much. But the NASL had an interesting point system of 6 points for a win, and one bonus point per goal up to three. The Fury advanced to the playoffs despite finishing in the basement of the Eastern Conference with a 12-18 record. They lost in the first round to Detroit due to a goal by Trevor Francis, who was at the start of his career, and Brian Clough hadn’t broken the transfer record yet. After the season, while suffering heavy financial losses, Rick Wakeman, and Brian Lane left as owners.

If you think that was bad, next year was going to be crazier. For the 1979 season they needed a manager, since Alan Ball wasn’t too keen on coming back as a player/manager. Next they looked at Cesar Menotti, the 1978 World Cup champion with Argentina. But Ehlinger did not pull the trigger because Menotti didn’t speak English. As with anything in this generation, people have said that they were looking to sign Diego Maradona as an 18 year old, but he was too small. The amount of times that’s been said, is massive.

Oh but wait, the coaching spot gets stranger. Next the Fury turned to the manager of the Polish 1978 World Cup team, Jacek Gmoch. He had local ties, he went to University of Pennsylvania, and coached the Polish Eagles in the United Soccer League. In November 1978, he accepted the job, and was studying videos of the club’s matches. Then, Poland’s Minister of Sport refused to release Gmoch from his national team responsibilities until June 1979. So the Fury thought at first they would have Derek Trevis to manage the team until then.

But that was all deemed unacceptable. So they found their man in former Yugoslavian National Team and Olympic coach Marko Valok. Now they wanted to bring in Bruce Rioch from Derby County, and Chris Catlin from Brighton, but couldn’t finish the deal. Though they were able to get goalkeeper Keith Van Eron and goal scorer David Robb.

To make it even worse, a labor strike was looming over the 1979 season. For their part Peter Osgood was sold back to Chelsea, and Johnny Giles stayed in Leeds. With all this happening it wasn’t a surprise that Valok had trouble finding players. He was able to get RAdi Martinovic, Miro Djordjevic, Stojan Nikolic, and Dusan Lukic. The home slate of the 1979 season got started with a 3-0 thrashing over Rochester on a Robb hat-trick, but only in front of 6,152 people. Just as the season was getting on, General Manager Bob Ehlinger quit on the team, saying that the ownership wasn’t helping.

In April, the team was 2-4, and saw Ball make his way back to Philadelphia. He also attempted to bring in Frank Worthington on loan from Bolton. On his way out the door Ehlinger was able to get Worthington in, but hadn’t secured it with Worthington’s signature. That helped ex-Atoms head coach Al Miller swoop in and take him to the Dallas Tornado. Though Commissioner Woosnam said that the Fury had the deal all but done, Worthington had to sign for the Fury.

Ball, was a shell of himself, and was traded to Vancouver, where he helped lead the Whitecaps to the 1979 NASL Championship, and the MVP of the Soccer Bowl that year.

Alan Ball, on the other hand, proved to be relatively ineffective. As a result, he was traded to Vancouver, where he rebounded to lead the Whitecaps to the 1979 NASL Championship, being named MVP of the Soccer Bowl that year. Just before the July 7 trade deadline, the Fury brought in defender Bob Rigby from Los Angeles. This did help, as Robb finished among the top of the league with 16 goals, and 20 assists. Worthington added 10, and Pat Fidelia netted 9.

With a 10-20 record the Fury again made the playoffs. In the first round they swept the American Soccer Conference’s top team Houston Hurricane’s out in a two match playoff. That moved the Fury to the American Soccer Conference quarterfinals, to play the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They had to move the matches to Franklin Field. The Rowdies were too powerful for the Fury, and bounced them out.

The 1980 season looked to be a good one, with Eddie Firmani, who won three NASL championships with two different clubs. Along with Firmani came along assistant coach George O’Neil who was another ex-Atom. They had a very good backline; Rigby, Bobby Smith, John Dempsey, Fran O’Brien, and Tony Glavin. They did bring in another local boy in Kensington, man Dave McWilliams from Tampa. Firmani cut off his nose to spite his face, dealing David Robb to Vancouver.

Thought, he did bring in Holland international Bob Vosmaer, and Ossama Khalil. This all sunk the Fury, Khalil never found his scoring, and was not that good. The Fury started the season 1-7, only drawing 9,574 for the home opener. By the middle of the summer there were rumors that the team was heading off to Canada full time. By August, Molson Breweries bought the club and would move the team to Montreal. The Fury finished their last year in Philadelphia 10-22 missing the playoffs for their first time. Khalil netted one goal in 20 matches, but did hit 12 goals for 15 the following year for the California Surf.

The Philadelphia Fury were a big example of why the NASL collapsed. There were horrible owners, spending foolishly, lacking commitment to the community. Like the Fury, the NASL would end up going bust as well. Next time, we will talk about the players who were apart of the side.

- by Stephen Brandt