American Soccer League (1988-1989)
American Professional Soccer League (1990)
Tombstone
Born: 1987 – ASL founding franchise
Folded: Postseason 1990
First Game: April 17, 1988 (L 3-1 @ Maryland Bays)
Last Game: August 4, 1990 (W 1-0 vs. Washington Stars)
ASL Championships: None
APSL Championships: None
Stadium
Nickerson Field (14,700)
Marketing
Team Colors: Red, White & Blue
Ownership
Owner: Alan Suvalle
ASL Franchise Fee (1987): $10,0001Pave, Marvin. “SPORTS NOTEBOOK: Newton men looking for bolt out of the green”. The Globe (Boston, MA). June 3, 1990
Background
The Boston Bolts played at Nickerson Field on the campus of Boston University. The 10,000-seat stadium was a 15-minute bus ride from my home on the #57 bus, the same one that went to Fenway Park about ten minutes further down Commonwealth Avenue. I went to a half dozen or so games, mostly during the summer of ’89 when the Bolts made a serious run at the American Soccer League (ASL) championship, losing at home in the final game. When I couldn’t go, I could sometimes find the Bolts games on SportsChannel New England. Although I would later become a true fan of the sport, my primary concern at most Bolts games was the outcome of the nightly halftime raffle drawing for a team-autographed soccer ball.
The ASL was an effort to start a fiscally conservative pro league, with regionalized travel on the Eastern seaboard. Teams were truly operated on a shoestring. The franchise fee to buy into the league was only $10,000. Team salary caps for the league’s debut season in 1988 were just $50,000 and players earned about $100 per match.
The ASL’s eight founding franchises included Boston and Albany in the Northeast, a trio of clubs clustered around Washington, D.C., and four franchises in Florida. The Florida clubs included revived versions of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and Tampa Bay Rowdies of the defunct, big-budget North American Soccer League.
The Bolts made their Boston debut on April 30th, 1988 against the Orlando Lions at Nickerson. The match, a 1-1 draw, drew an announced crowd of 4,028 to the B.U. campus. The club’s most prominent player in 1988 was Jeff Duback, who was a reserve goalkeeper for the U.S. National Team at the time. The Bolts finished 9-11 and missed the playoffs.
1989 Season & Championship Series
The Bolts peaked during the 1989 season. Boston lacked a top scoring threat, failing to place anyone among the ASL’s top dozen goal scorers that summer. But the team was well-balanced. ASL All-Star Dehinde Akinlotan anchored a stout backline. Greg Kenney replaced the departed Jeff Duback in goal and emerged as one of the ASL’s top keepers. The Bolts finished second in the ASL’s Northern Division with a 13-7 ledger. In the playoffs, Boston dispatched the Tampa Bay Rowdies in a two-leg semi-final series.
The Bolts faced the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in a home-and-home championship series in late August 1989. The Strikers took the first leg in Florida with a 1-0 victory on August 19, 1989. The teams headed to Nickerson Field for the decisive second leg on August 26, 1989. After a scoreless opening half, Steve Potter (58′) and Paul Duffy (75′) tallied for the Bolts in the second frame, sending the crowd of 5,370 into delirium. In a conventional two-leg format, the surge would have sent the Bolts to the championship on aggregate goals. But the ASL used a mini-game tie-breaker format instead. After a short break, the exhausted clubs returned to the field for the 30-minute mini-game. Marcelo Carrera scored in the eighth minute for the Strikers and Fort Lauderdale hung on to claim the 1989 league title.
Final Campaign
The Bolts returned for a third season in the spring of 1990. The ASL announced a merger with the Western Soccer League to create a new nationwide league known as the American Professional Soccer League. For the 1990 season, this “merger” was largely academic. The eastern and western clubs would continue to play on their respective coasts to keep costs down as they had for the past two seasons. The only time the Eastern and Western clubs would actually meet would be in a league championship game in September.
The roster turned over substantially from the club’s excellent 1989 squad. Defensive standouts Dehinde Akinlotan and Greg Kenney departed. Jeff Duback returned after a year’s absence. The team managed to sign U.S. National Team defender Brian Bliss, but he appeared in only just one match due to the U.S. appearance in the World Cup in Italy that summer.
The Bolts’ 1990 home opener, a rematch of the 1989 final against Fort Lauderdale, drew a club record 6,648 fans to Nickerson on April 28, 1990. But the next week’s match against Tampa Bay drew only 814 fans. Attendance never recovered. The Bolts failed to draw 2,000 for any match in the next three months. The team finished 9-11 and missed the postseason.
Oddly, the final APSL match hosted by the Bolts franchise didn’t involve the Bolts themselves. Nickerson Field was chosen as the neutral site for the American Professional Soccer League championship match on September 22, 1990. The Maryland Bays defeated the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks 2-1 on penalties before 4,881.
The Bolts folded a few months later.
In Memoriam
Midfielder Stan Koziol (Bolts ’89-’90) died of leukemia on March 3, 2014 at age 48. Concacaf.com obituary.
Downloads
July 29, 1989 Boston Bolts Roster
7-29-1989 Boston Bolts Roster
July 27, 1990 Bolts @ New Jersey Eagles Game Notes
Links
American Soccer League Media Guides
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