Now the end of the Washington series. There have been some fun antidotes in this series, and with us ending it on the great matches in the District, we might find more. The great thing with this series is not having to lean on the Cosmos or Portland for everything. The sad thing even with the explosion of nostalgia is how many writers have crutch topics. I have done my fair share of Cosmos media since 2005, but now that I’m old it’s better to dig in on other teams.

In the late sixties there was a very well known match, the 1967 Washington Whips v LA Wolves on July 10th in RFK Stadium. There was a protested tie, and the match was replayed to secure the Eastern Division Title. This was played in front of 11,000 fans, and made the Whips for the United Soccer Association Final later that summer.

Ultimately, the Washington Whips lost to the LA Wolves in the 1967 United Soccer Association Championship Game.

That match was on July 14, 1967 in the Coliseum in Los Angeles. It ended in a 6-5 win after 133 minutes including sudden-death overtime. LA’s Bobby Thomson hit a cross into the box, which deflected off of Whips defender Ally Shewan past goalkeeper Bobby Clark for the winning goal. There were two hat-tricks scored in this game as well; LA’s David Burnside and Washington's Frank Munro. Munro scored in both the final seconds of regulation and extra time to keep the match alive.

In the seventies the NASL brought over many world teams to drum up attendance numbers for that ticket office spike. In 1970 at Catholic University's Brookland the Washington team was now the Darts, were playing against Hertha Berlin. The Darts, while playing an up-tempo style, still lost to the much more seasoned Hertha Berlin 2-0. The Berliners had Heinz Franz Brungs score twice for the win.

Brookland Stadium, home of Catholic University of America, hosted the second leg of the 1970 NASL Final. The Darts played a handful of interesting friendlies before moving to Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

The next year, the Darts played another foreign team, Bangu AC on August 8, 1971 at Catholic University Stadium. The Darts ran out to a 2-1 lead before the Brazilians tied it up for the draw. The Darts two goals came from Tibor Szalay, and Warren Archibald whereas Bangu’s goal came from; Edison Bonfim, and Amauri DaSilva.

We couldn’t get out our series on the Diplomats without adding a Johan Cruyff goal to our rap up. On June 1, 1980 the Dips played the NY Cosmos. This was at the height of Cosmos' popularity, they came to RFK to play their normal early season match. Unfortunately, a Dips goal was disallowed late in the match. However, they didn’t need anything other than Johan Cruyff’s goal of the year for 1980 for the win.

Well that’s it for the nation's capital, and that was a unique look at a big city that should have had one team stay for the length of the league. Having Johan Cruyff, and Aberdeen as your main clubs definitely helps us look back. Well next series we are going to do the same thing, but with the Atlanta Chiefs, Apollos of the 1970s. Atlanta was very important for the league, and turned out a lot of great talent, including a Manchester City match.

by Stephen Brandt