An excellent story by JOEY JOHNSTON of The Tampa Tribune has just been published:TAMPA - Three words from a time capsule. Three words from a wonderfully colorful era. Three words guaranteed to bring a smile, a nod of recognition.
Tampa Bay Rowdies.
"What was it like?" asked Rodney Marsh, once the "Clown Prince of Soccer," who is now 65. "It was wild. I'm telling you, wild."
"We captured some magic," said Mike Connell, known as "Iron Mike."
"I don't think we'll see anything quite like it ever again," said Steve Wegerle.
As the fledgling FC Rowdies open their home schedule Saturday night against the Austin Aztex at Steinbrenner Field, even the familiar green-and-gold Tampa Bay uniform colors can't disguise the all-new feeling.
It's the U.S. Soccer Federation's Division 2 league, trying to find its way in a Tampa Bay sports market awash with professional and college football, baseball and hockey.
When the original Rowdies joined the star-studded North American Soccer League in 1975, arriving one season before the NFL expansion Buccaneers, the honeymoon period was long-lasting. The Rowdies immediately won the NASL outdoor championship and reached the title game two other times.
At the franchise's apex in 1980, the Rowdies averaged 28,345 fans at old Tampa Stadium. In mid-June, for a game against the hated New York Cosmos, the Rowdies attracted a record crowd of 54,247, only to soon surpass that with 56,389 for the Fourth of July contest against the California Surf.
The Rowdies nurtured their foothold with fan-friendly accessibility that was insisted upon (and even written into player contracts) by Tampa Bay's cutting-edge front office. There were Rowdies player sightings at malls, civic lunches, school assemblies, youth league parades and even birthday parties.
"It really happened," said Farrukh Quraishi, the franchise's first draft selection who doubled as the organization's director of youth development, which jump-started the Bay area's amateur soccer leagues. "Somebody would call to say they were having a birthday party. We'd send someone. They'd come walking up in their Rowdie uniform. That hadn't been seen before."
Nor had this.
After home games, at popular watering holes such as Boneshakers or Victoria Station, the Rowdies partied with the fans. Inevitably, the late-night sessions were capped by a large group, arm in arm, belting out pub songs.
"It might be like the Woodstock deal," Connell said. "You had to be there. Here we were, these foreign guys coming to town with these funny accents. We'd go to a school and demonstrate how to juggle the ball, something very natural.
"But the people, who didn't yet know much about soccer, they thought we were magicians, like the Harlem Globetrotters. They kind of marveled at us. And in turn, the raw passion of those fans, well, it helped make us into the team everyone wanted to be like. I'll be honest. I get chills just thinking about it all."
Kick in the grass
Deep in the recesses of the Tampa Bay area's sporting memory, there is an unmistakable soundtrack.
The Rowdies run here,
The Rowdies run there,
They kick the ball around.
"You couldn't escape the song," Connell said. "It was everywhere."
The Rowdies run here,
The Rowdies run there,
Then they fall on the ground!
"I was on a live radio program and this guy called in and said, 'Rodney Marsh? When are you going to get rid of that (bleeping) song? It's driving me mad!' " Marsh said. "And I thought, 'Wow, we have arrived.' "
Oh, the Rowdies, the Rowdies,
The Rowdies aaa-aaa-rrrre …
A kick in the grass!
"That jingle, we all knew it by heart," said Tampa's Scott Lawler, who was 5 when the Rowdies arrived. His family held soccer tailgate parties outside Tampa Stadium. Once, they interrupted a beach vacation because the Rowdies were playing and, well, they hadn't missed a home game.
Lawler, a regular at Rowdies camps and clinics, played at King High School and Butler University, where he was inducted into the school's athletic hall of fame.
"The Rowdies," said Lawler, now 39, "were my way of life."
And it was true everywhere.
"The Rowdies' name is (still) world famous," Ian Morris, 47, a soccer fan and retired stone mason from Great Britain, wrote in an e-mail interview. "The uniforms … were out of this world, compared to the boring uniforms worn at the time in the U.K."
"We were in Germany with friends for the last World Cup (2006) and we had Rowdie replica jerseys," Connell said. "The amount of people who recognized the Rowdie name and immediately connected it to Tampa Bay, it was just stunning. It's like it lasted forever."
A new era begins
Of course, it didn't last forever.
Marsh fondly remembers being swarmed by thousands of rain-soaked fans after punching in the clinching shootout goal to defeat the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and earn a Soccer Bowl berth in 1978. He became the team's head coach in 1984, but it practically coincided with the NASL's folding. The Rowdies franchise continued in lower-level leagues before it was extinguished in 1993.
"The dynamic that made the Rowdies was the togetherness with the fans, the love," said Marsh, who will handle commentary for Saturday's Rowdies-Aztex television broadcast on Bright House Sports Network. "I don't know that you can replicate those times. But you can build something new."
"I think the (Rowdies) name gives us instant recognition and credibility," said Perry Van der Beck, the former Rowdie who is technical director of the current team. "But it's a different era and even as we respect the past, we need to move forward. It's just a different time."
Is it ever.
Quraishi laughs when remembering one of his first public appearances at a 1975 soccer clinic.
"This little kid was tugging at me the whole time," Quraishi said. "He kept saying, 'My daddy owns Bern's! My daddy owns Bern's!'
"Look, I had no clue. I was new in town. I had never been to Bern's. I didn't know who this little kid was."
It was David Laxer, who now runs Bern's Steak House, founded by his father. Laxer is part of the ownership group for the current FC Rowdies.
"In a way, it seems like we have come full circle," Quraishi said. "There are so many fond memories of the old days. Those memories will never die. They are part of sports history here.
"I'm hoping this is the start of another Rowdies era that will always be remembered."
Just like the song.
Whether you're stuck on nostalgia or ready for a new beginning, who can forget?
Oh, the Rowdies, the Rowdies,
The Rowdies aaa-aaa-rrrre …
A kick in the grass!
Reporter Joey Johnston can be reached at (813) 259-7353.
Quraishi laughs when remembering one of his first public appearances at a 1975 soccer clinic.
"This little kid was tugging at me the whole time," Quraishi said. "He kept saying, 'My daddy owns Bern's! My daddy owns Bern's!'
"Look, I had no clue. I was new in town. I had never been to Bern's. I didn't know who this little kid was."
It was David Laxer, who now runs Bern's Steak House, founded by his father. Laxer is part of the ownership group for the current FC Rowdies.
"In a way, it seems like we have come full circle," Quraishi said. "There are so many fond memories of the old days. Those memories will never die. They are part of sports history here.
"I'm hoping this is the start of another Rowdies era that will always be remembered."
Just like the song.
Whether you're stuck on nostalgia or ready for a new beginning, who can forget?
Oh, the Rowdies, the Rowdies,
The Rowdies aaa-aaa-rrrre …
A kick in the grass!
Reporter Joey Johnston can be reached at (813) 259-7353.
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