Tag: Lockhart Stadium

1982 Fort Lauderdale Strikers Media Guide from the North American Soccer League

Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1977-1983)

The original Fort Lauderdale Strikers were an entertaining soccer club that made their home for seven seasons in South Florida. Fort Lauderdale aggressively sought Major League sports during the mid-1970’s. The city nearly poached the NBA’s Buffalo Braves in 1976 and courted several World Hockey Association clubs to play at the crummy Hollywood Sportatorium. But ultimately soccer was the game that alighted in Broward County in 1977. And it was the 7,800-seat city-owned Lockhart Stadium, rather than the oft-jilted Sportatorium, that would host the city’s first Major pro sports franchise. At their peak, the Strikers employed international superstars and World Cup veterans such as George Best, Gordon Banks Gerd Muller and Teofilo Cubillas. In 1980, the Strikers played for the NASL Soccer Bowl, losing in the final to the New York Cosmos before 50,000 fans in Washington, D.C. The Strikers name would be revived in Fort Lauderdale on several occasions, but the 1977-1983 NASL club was the original and best edition.

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Teofilo Cubillas on the cover of a 2015 Fort Lauderdale Strikers Program from the North American Soccer League

Fort Lauderdale Strikers (2011-2016)

The Fort Lauderdale Strikers of 2011-2016 were the latest in a series of nostalgic revivals of the original Strikers (1977-1983) of the old North American Soccer League. The franchise started out in 2006 as Miami FC in the lower-division United Soccer Leagues (USL). In 2011, the club joined a new version of the North American Soccer League (itself an exercise in nostalgia), took back the old Strikers name and colors, and moved into Lockhart Stadium, the home of the original Strikers in the 1970’s and 80’s. Though initially successful on the pitch, ownership turmoil roiled the club’s final seasons and the team shutdown without so much as an announcement in late 2016.

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Miami Fusion Soccer

Miami Fusion

The Miami Fusion were Major League Soccer’s early misfire in the South Florida market. Cellular One founder Ken Horowitz paid a $20 million expansion fee for the club in the spring of 1997. After three straight losing campaigns, the Fusion found their form in 2001 under the management of former Fort Lauderdale Strikers star Ray Hudson. Miami won the 2001 Supporters’ Shield as MLS best regular season club with a 16-5-5 record. But the club’s dire finances caused the Fusion’s closure following that promising 2001 season.

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1984 Fort Lauderdale Sun program from the United Soccer League

Fort Lauderdale Sun / South Florida Sun

The Fort Lauderdale Sun were an oddball pro soccer entry during the dark years of the mid-1980’s for the outdoor game in the United States. The team formed in February 1984 to replaced the recently departed Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the NASL at Lockhart Stadium. The Sun played in the newly formed United Soccer League (USL) and won the league championship in their 1984 debut season, despite the team’s owner getting indicted midway through the season in a marijuana smuggling conspiracy. The United Soccer League disbanded partway into its sophomore campaign in June 1985, bringing about the end of the Sun.

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