Kansas City Spurs
The Kansas City Spurs (1967 Chicago Spurs ) were an American football team. In 1967 the Chicago franchise was a founding member of the "Pirate League " National Professional Soccer League . The team moved when the league merged with the United Soccer Association to form the North American Soccer League because of a second Chicago-based team, the Chicago Mustangs, to Kansas City , Missouri.
In the NPSL season, the club won ten games out of 32 games, lost eleven times and missed the play-offs as third in the division. In the first NASL season he was able to qualify for the play-offs with 16 wins, eleven lost games and five draws. There, however, the club was eliminated in the Western Conference final against the San Diego Toros .
After the first season, the NASL nearly collapsed when all but five franchises went out. As a last resort, the league recruited five club squads for the first half of the 1969 season during the free summer of the British professional leagues. The Wolverhampton Wanderers , who had already competed in the USA as Los Angeles Wolves , ran for the Spurs . The Wolves won this part of the season, called the International Cup, as Spurs, and the lead was enough for the 1969 championship, which consisted of both halves of the season.
In the 1970 season, the club missed the play-offs as a division runner-up and ran into serious financial difficulties, so that the franchise was excluded from the league and dissolved in early 1971.
Venues
Both in Chicago and after moving to Kansas City, the Spurs played their home game in large American football stadiums that could not be filled during football matches , first in Chicago's Soldier Field (then capacity ~ 100,000), later in the Kansas City Municipal Stadium (then Capacity ~ 37,000). The average attendance actually achieved was 2,600 in Chicago - with a league negative record of 870 in a game against Los Angeles - and between 2,400 and 8,000 in Kansas City. The interim success of Wolverhampton Wolves, who played for Spurs in 1969, did not significantly increase attendance at the real Spurs' games, but fell from over 8,000 before the International Cup to 4,200 afterwards - which is still the best cut in the NASL this season was.
player
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Horst Szymaniak (1967), German national player. -
Bob Gansler (1967), captain of the US national team. -
Joe Haverty (1967–1968), Irish international. -
Willy Roy (1967–1968), American international.
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Eric Barber (1968–1969), Irish international.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Entry on the Spurs ( memento of the original from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on NASL.com.
- ^ A b c David A. Litterer: " North American Soccer League ", rsssf.com ( as of February 12, 2005, visited June 26, 2009 ).
- ^ David Wangerin: Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game . WSC Books Limited, London 2006, ISBN 0-9540134-7-6 , pp. 146 .
- ↑ Alex Yannis: "Kansas City Loses Soccer Franchise; Spurs Unable to Post Bond, Assure Owner Stability, "New York Times, Jan 31, 1971, p. 20.
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ David Wangerin: Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game . WSC Books Limited, London 2006, ISBN 0-9540134-7-6 , pp. 133 .
- ^ David Wangerin: Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game . WSC Books Limited, London 2006, ISBN 0-9540134-7-6 , pp. 145 .
