Sacramento Gold

American Soccer League (1978-1980)

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Sacramento Gold T-Shirt

This second division American club wasn’t around long. The Gold played parts of three seasons at Hughes Stadium between 1978 and 1980. But they did manage to win the 1979 American Soccer League title during their only full season under the Gold name. 

Our partners Extra Tim Vintage Soccer have an excellent line-up of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and even mugs honoring lower division American clubs of the 1970’s and 80’s. This Sacramento Gold design is available today in a variety of colors and sizes Small through 6XL!

 

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Background

The city of Sacramento, California hosted 2nd division professional soccer for five seasons at the end of the 1970’s. It was an era when pro soccer was quite literally the only game in town. The California capital lost pro baseball when the Class AAA Sacramento Solons left town in 1977. The Sacramento Kings and the NBA wouldn’t arrive until 1985. The Sacramento Spirits / Gold appeared in three American Soccer League championship games between 1976 and 1980.  Oddly, during the two seasons the Sacramentans did not play for the championship, they finished dead last.

The American Soccer League dated all the way back to 1933 and spent most of its existence confined to industrial cities of the Northeast, where teams were often defined by their ethnic affiliation.  Through the postwar years clubs such as the New York Hakoah-Americans, Newark Portuguese and the Philadelphia Ukrainians competed under the ASL auspices.  In the early 1970’s, the league began to professionalize, banishing the ethnic names and branching out beyond the Philadelphia-New York corridor.

In 1974, the ASL hired former NBA star Bob Cousy – who professed to know nothing whatsoever about soccer – as its Commissioner to attract national publicity.  A full-fledged West Coast expansion occurred in the summer of 1976, which included the debut of the Sacramento Spirits.  The Spirits played out of Sacramento State Stadium and finished in the cellar in 1976 with a 4-14-3 record.

The Spirits returned in 1977 and engineered a remarkable turnaround under Head Coach Bob Ridley. Sacramento won the West Division with an 18-4-4 record and played the New Jersey Americans for the ASL Championship on September 4th, 1977. New Jersey won the match 3-0. Ridley was named the league’s Coach-of-the-Year.

Spirits To Gold

The Spirits ran out of money midway through the 1978 season. California cabinet manufacturer John Andreotti rescued the club and re-launched immediately under the “Gold” name. The remainder of the 1978 campaign was anything but golden. The club regressed to a 7-15-2 last place finish.

The Gold rebuilt again in 1979. Bill Williams replaced Ridley as manager. English brothers Ian and Malcolm Filby and South African striker Neill Roberts headlined a large cast of newcomers.  Mal Filby was expected to be the team’s key threat but suffered a season-ending injury in the home opener. Brother Ian stepped up in his stead and led the ASL in scoring with 14 goals and 17 assists.  From a financial standpoint though, the best signing may have been Neill Roberts. Midway through the 1979 season, the Gold sold Roberts’ contract to the Atlanta Chiefs of the first division North American Soccer League for $25,000. It was reportedly a record transfer fee between the two American leagues.  (Roberts was more than worth it. He scored 14 goals in 19 matches for the Chiefs in 1979).

That $25,000 undoubtedly helped the Gold bottom line.  Typical annual operating budgets for ASL franchises in the late 1970’s averaged less than $500,000 per year.  By 1979, the Gold had moved to 23,000-seat Hughes Stadium on the campus of Sacramento City College.  During the 1979 season, the Gold drew 57,073 to Hughes for 14 matches and led the low-budget ASL with average announced attendance of 4,077 per match.

1979 Championship Game

On September 17th, 1979 the Gold travelled to Ohio to face the Columbus Magic in the American Soccer League championship game.  The match took place at Franklin County Stadium, a re-lined minor league baseball park. The match was scoreless at halftime.

As he had all season, Ian Filby came through for the Gold and broke a scoreless tie in the 84th minute. Sacramento goalkeeper Peta Bala’c held the Magic at bay with 10 saves. The 1-0 margin held up to give the Gold the 1979 ASL championship.

The End

The Gold returned for a third ASL season in 1980 (fifth if you count the Spirits years), but quickly ran out of money.  In early July 1980, the Gold chose to forfeit a road match at the Miami Americans rather than pay for airfare to Florida.  By late July, with the team still unwilling or unable to travel, the ASL terminated the franchise.  A group of Sacramento-area boosters raised $35,000 – $40,000 and turned it over to the league office to run the team through the end of the season.  “Sacramento” (the Gold moniker was dropped) finished out the season as a ward of the league and, improbably, made a return visit to the ASL championship game.  Sacramento lost the title match to the Pennsylvania Stoners 2-1 in Allentown, PA on September 18th, 1980.

After the season, Sacramento folded along with the rest of the ASL’s remaining West Coast franchises.

Aftermath

The ASL played three more seasons from 1981 to 1983.  After 1980, it never again fielded a team west of Oklahoma City.  The league folded in early 1984.

The Gold’s young General Manager from the 1979 season, Greg “Dutch” Van Dusen, became a leading figure in the successful effort to bring the NBA’s Kansas City Kings franchise to Sacramento in 1985.  He also negotiated the naming rights to the city’s ARCO Arena and worked as an executive for the Kings throughout the 1980’s.

Professional soccer – of the indoor variety – returned to Sacramento in the summer of 1993 with the Knights of the Continental Indoor Soccer League.  The Knights played at ARCO Arena in a succession of leagues for nine summers between 1993 and 2001.

Voices

I don’t want to pretend that Sacramento was a soccer city back then. But there wasn’t a lot else to do. We did the kinds of things we had done when I was with the Sacramento Solons [baseball team] to attract attendance and make it fun. Something you learn it minor league baseball is there aren’t that many purists. So make it fun. We did all kinds of promotions.

This was the craziest one. Our rivals became the Los Angeles Skyhawks. Our owner thought it was be funny if he sat in the stands under the press box with a loud toy rifle and shot a chicken out of the sky. We gave away a couple hundred rubber chickens that night. He asked me to toss one off the top of the press box for him to fire at. I backed as far away as possible. That may have been an all-time low.

– Greg Van Dusen, General Manager 1979 (Interviewed 2018)

At one point during the [1979] championship game a league official offered to arrange a penalty kick for us for a fee. I won’t say who it was. But I was insulted. I dismissed him and not politely at all.

– Greg Van Dusen

I made a tremendous mistake. I thought I was being diligent. I kept a record of everything we did during the 1979 season in a binder in order to have an operations manual. At the end of the season, I presented it to Mr. Andreotti. And he thanked me for my service and said goodbye.

– Greg Van Dusen

Sacramento Gold Shop

Downloads

1978 American Soccer League Attendance Report

Links

American Soccer League Media Guides

American Soccer League Programs

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