North American Soccer League (1977)
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Born: October 29, 1976 – The San Antonio Thunder relocate to Honolulu11977 North American Soccer League Guide
Moved: November 15, 1977 (Tulsa Roughnecks)2Chase, Al. “Pro Soccer in Islands Gone with Wind”. The Star-Bulletin (Honolulu, HI). November 16, 1977
First Game: April 8, 1977 (W 1-0 vs. Seattle Sounders)
Last Game: August 4, 1977 (L 5-0 @ Seattle Sounders)
Soccer Bowl Championships: None
Stadium
Aloha Stadium (50,000)31977 North American Soccer League Guide
Opened: 1975
Closed: 2020
Marketing
Team Colors: Gold, Blue & Green41977 North American Soccer League Guide
Ownership
Owner: Ward Lay Jr.
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Team Hawaii NASL
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According to former Honolulu Star-Bulletin sportswriter Al Chase, Honolulu’s first pro soccer team was known as “Team Hawaii” simply because the club, freshly relocated from San Antonio in early 1977, ran out of time to hold a planned Name The Team contest.
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Background
Team Hawaii was a brief entry in the North American Soccer League (1968-1984). The nomadic franchise lasted just one season at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium in the summer of 1977 before moving on the greener pastures.
The club began life in 1975 as an expansion franchise in Texas, the San Antonio Thunder (1975-1976). After two seasons of poor support in West Texas, 32-year old owner Ward Lay Jr. moved his franchise to Hawaii in October 1976. Lay was the son of Herman Warden Lay, Sr., founder of the Frito-Lay potato chip empire.
Lay, based out of Dallas, was an absentee owner and his club led a star-crossed existence in Hawaii. It rained during five of the first seven home matches. Team Hawaii fared poorly under Head Coach Hubert Vogelsinger, finishing out of postseason consideration with an 11-15 record. Fans stayed away in droves. Average attendance was just 4,543 per match, which was second worst in the 18-team NASL in 1977. The ticket sales high point was an April 1977 match against Pele and the New York Cosmos, the NASL’s biggest gate attraction. Still, the crowd of 12,877 swam in the 50,000-seat expanse of Aloha Stadium.
Move To Tulsa
Shortly after the 1977 concluded, Ward Lay came close to moving Team Hawaii to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That fell through and Lay moved the club to Tulsa, Oklahoma instead in November 1977. As the Tulsa Roughnecks, the club played seven seasons in the NASL before folding along with the rest of the league in early 1985.
Trivia
Team Hawaii won their debut game 1-0 against the Seattle Sounders on April 8, 1977 before an announced crowd of 5,312 at Aloha Stadium. The teams played to a scoreless draw through regulation and 15 minutes of sudden death overtime. The match was then decided in the NASL’s unique “shootout” format, with five players from each team taking turns attempting to score one-on-one against the opposing goalkeeper in a 35-yard breakaway. Brian Tinnion and Jose Diamantino scored for Team Hawaii while the Sounders missed all of their attempts.
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Editor's Pick
Rock n' Roll Soccer
The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League
by Ian Plenderleith
The North American Soccer League – at its peak in the late 1970s – presented soccer as performance, played by men with a bent for flair, hair and glamour. More than just Pelé and the New York Cosmos, it lured the biggest names of the world game like Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Gerd Müller and George Best to play the sport as it was meant to be played-without inhibition, to please the fans.
The first complete look at the ambitious, star-studded NASL, Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer reveals how this precursor to modern soccer laid the foundations for the sport’s tremendous popularity in America today.
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In Memoriam
Team Hawaii owner Ward Lay Jr. passed away from liver cancer at age 66 in October 2011. Dallas Morning News obituary.
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2 Responses
FYI-
the 1976 soccer game at Aloha Stadium did NOT feature TEAM HAWAII. It was a tripleheader that concluded with the Pele-led Cosmos taking on a club called Team Honda from japan. The first game featured Hawaii all-stars vs. the NASL’s San Diego Jaws. The 2nd game featured teams from Taiwan and (I think) the Philippines. The crowd was actually 22,000, according to the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.
Thanks.
Yes Pele played twice in Hawaii, the 1976 exhibition and in 1977 with the Cosmos during his final season. Apparently Mr Lay thought he’d be the only game in town, so would draw decent crowds, after the 1976 event drew 22k. He was wrong. Hawaii didn’t have many soccer fans and it failed badly