Tombstone
Born: August 1998 – A-League expansion franchise1STAFF & WIRE REPORTS.”USISL grants new franchise”. The Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY). August 21, 1998
Folded: November 1999
First Game: April 29, 1999 (L 2-0 @ Raleigh Capital Express)
Last Game: September 4, 1999 (L 5-0 vs. Hampton Roads Mariners)
A-League Championships: None
Stadia
UMBC Stadium (5,000)21999 United Soccer Leagues Media Guide
Opened:
Surface: Astroturf
Anne Arundel Community College
Marketing
Team Colors:31999 United Soccer Leagues Media Guide
Home: White, Gold, Red
Away: Red, Black, Gold
Ownership
Owner: A.J. Ali, et al.
Attendance
Background
The Maryland Mania was a seemingly cursed 2nd Division pro soccer club that existed for only one season in the United Soccer Leagues’ A-League during the summer of 1999. The A-League was the 2nd Division of men’s pro soccer in the United States at the time, competing one level below Major League Soccer.
Justin Fashanu
Over a year before the Mania played their first game, club founder A.J. Ali hired ex-Norwich City striker Justin Fashanu to be the team’s Head Coach. Fashanu was the first black footballer to command a $1 million transfer fee in England when Nottingham Forest acquired him as a 20-year old in 1981. Nottingham Forest thought Fashanu could be the heir apparent to Trevor Francis, but his career never quite lived up to his early promise at Norwich City. Fashanu spent the late 1980’s and most of the 1990’s pinballing between short stints in England and lower division gigs with North American clubs in Edmonton, Los Angeles and Atlanta. But Fashanu stayed in the public eye thanks to his status as one of the first openly homosexual players in English football, after coming out to the press in 1990.
In early 1998, Fashanu moved to Maryland to prepare for the debut of the Mania in 1999. In April 1998 he was interviewed by police and later charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year old student in Ellicott City, Maryland. Fashanu disputed the boy’s account in a suicide note. He fled back to England and hung himself in a garage in May 1998.
1999 Season
When the Mania finally took the field a year later, Columbia, Maryland native and former New York Cosmos player Darryl Gee was Head Coach. But A.J. Ali fired Gee after the Mania lost their first game on the road, replacing him with former Baltimore Blast star Paul Kitson. After 13 games, the Mania’s record was 1-12. The team had been outscored 26-4.
Off the field the Mania had even bigger problems. Crowds at UMBC Stadium numbered in the low hundreds at best. The club abruptly moved to a cheaper community college field in midseason. The team stopped paying bills and The Baltimore Sun ran an article addressing rumors the club would be unable to complete the season. Founder A.J. Ali walked away from the team in midseason, leaving behind a pile of unpaid bills and a group of thirteen smarting investment partners.
The Mania managed the stagger through the remainder of the 1999 A-League calendar. They ultimately finished 29th out of 30 clubs in the league with a 3-25 record. The club announced its closure in early November 1999. Investors reportedly lost $650,000 on the team’s lone season of operation.
In Memoriam
Player/coach Paul Kitson suffered a fatal brain aneurysm while conducting a soccer clinic on August 25, 2005. Kitson was 49. Baltimore Sun obituary.
Links
Tamsin Todd’s 1998 Salon profile of Justin Fashanu
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2 Responses
I was working for the A-League team in Indiana at the time. The rule was if you couldn’t or wouldn’t bring your own athletic trainer, you could hire one locally. We had a deal with a sports medicine clinic and found someone willing to be their trainer for the night, but he (understandably) wanted to be paid.
Their GM said the owner had taken the checkbook or something, some lame excuse, so he couldn’t write a check, so we said we’d cut a check if we could run their credit card for $75 (or whatever it was, it was about that).
Their credit card was declined. I think they finally found one that worked.
That club was a mess. Mess, mess, mess.
Kenn –
I was an intern in the A-League the following summer with the Boston Bulldogs. The Mania were gone by then, but they were still the stuff of legend around the Bulldogs offices a year later.
AC