North American Soccer League (1978-1980)
American Soccer League (1981-1983)
Tombstone
Born: 1977 – NASL expansion franchise
Moved: February 28, 1981 (Washington Diplomats)
Re-Formed: April 6, 1981 – ASL expansion franchise1Pepper, Jon. “Express re-open as 7th ASL franchise”. The Free Press (Detroit, MI). April 7, 1981
Folded: Postseason 1983
First Game: April 1, 1978 (W 2-1 vs. Tulsa Roughnecks)
Last Game: August 1, 1983 (L 2-1 @ Carolina Lightnin’)
Soccer Bowl Championships (NASL): None
ASL Champions:1982
Stadia
Outdoor Soccer:
1978-1983: The Pontiac Silverdome (80,500)21978 North American Soccer League Guide
Opened: 1975
Demolished: 2017-2018
1981: Wayne State University
Indoor Soccer:
1979-1981: The Pontiac Silverdome (16,860)
Marketing
Team Colors: White, Navy Blue & Orange31983 American Soccer League Media Guide
Ownership
Owners:
- 1978-1981: Roger Faulkner, Jimmy Hill, Gordon Preston, Willie Dewald, et al.
- 1981-1983: Sonny Van Arnem
Our Favorite Stuff
Express Logo T-Shirt
Imagine the uproar if a Major League Soccer expansion franchise introduced a cartoon logo like this today! But back in 1978, this Detroit Express design was viewed as one of the NASL’s more innovative branding efforts.
Also available from Old School Shirts as:
Women’s Scoop Back or Racerback Tank
3/4 sleeve Raglan
Hooded or Crewneck Sweatshirt
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Background
The Detroit Express began life as an expansion team in the North American Soccer League in 1978. Express ownership was headed up by British football broadcaster and promoter Jimmy Hill. Hill and the Express gained some national (and international) attention for acquiring English soccer star Trevor Francis on loan from Birmingham City in 1978. Francis was a prolific scorer and the first footballer to earn 1 million pounds sterling per season in England.
Francis played for the Express in 1978 and 1979. It was an era when NASL owners lured numerous aging European stars to America with eye-popping paychecks. Francis was an exception to this NASL retirement plan. He was only 25 years old and at the peak of his powers during his Express seasons. Francis was a prominent attraction for the Express. But one of the club’s general partners eventually soured on this imported superstar approach:
In a 2012 self-published memoir, Harold “Sonny” Van Arnem compared the NASL to “a league full of Harlem Globetrotters, except they player soccer. Now, a lot of people enjoy watching the Globetrotters play, but only about once a year. We need people to come out a dozen times a year, and this all-star approach isn’t working.”
Departure of Original Franchise & Re-Birth
Van Arnem’s solution was Americanization. Grass roots pro soccer, relevant to the American fan because the American player was the norm rather than the exception. This was just as well because the rest of the Express ownership gave up on Detroit in February 1981. Jimmy Hill moved the NASL franchise to Washington, DC where it met a quick and ugly end in six months.
Van Arnem, meanwhile, retained control of the Detroit Express name and marks. He immediately relaunched a new version of the club in the ramshackle 2nd division American Soccer League in the spring of 1981. The “New” Detroit Express would play in the ASL from 1981 to 1983.
1982 Championship Season
This 1982 season was the high water mark for the New Express. The club posted a league best 19-5-4 record. Both the Express and their opening day opponents from Oklahoma City fielded starting line-ups full of young Americans, but the impact players were still foreign. Detroit’s pair of English forwards, Brian Tinnion and Andy Chapman, finished 1-2 in the ASL in scoring in 1982, with teammate Billy Boljevic (Yugoslavia) 4th.
The Express and the Oklahoma City Slickers met in the best-of-three 1982 American Soccer League championship series. After splitting the first two matches, the teams returned to the Pontiac Silverdome on September 22, 1982 for the deciding game. Sonny Van Arnem, faced with only a few days to promote the game after advancing from the semi-finals, gave away 70,000 tickets to local Dodge dealers. An army of car salesmen offered the duckets for free to anyone who showed up at a dealership. The result: an astonishing crowd of 33,762 that showed up at an NFL stadium to watch what amounted to a minor league soccer game. The Express won the game 4-1 and with it the league title.
The Express played one final season in the summer of 1983. Then the team went out of business along with the rest of the American Soccer League.
Trivia
Two British stars from the ASL-era Express, Andy Chapman and Brian Tinnion, remain fixtures on the Michigan soccer scene. Both were with the now-defunct Detroit Rockers indoor team in the 1990’s, and are still active in youth soccer in the region.
Detroit Express Shop
The Stadium Store
Pontiac Silverdome
Graphic T-Shirt
For a quarter century between 1975 and 2000, Michigan’s Pontiac Silverdome was the largest stadium in the National Football League with more than 82,000 seats. The vast, air-supported dome also hosted the NBA’s Pistons from 1978-1988, was a site for the historic 1994 FIFA World Cup and hosted Wrestlemania III, Super Bowl XVI and international superstars ranging from Pope John Paul II (1987) to Led Zeppelin (1977).
This design is also available as a Hooded or Crewneck Sweatshirt today from Old School Shirts!
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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.
When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!
In Memoriam
Head coach Ken Furphy (Express ’78-’81) died on January 17, 2015 at age 83.
Express owner Jimmy Hill passed away on December 19, 2015 at the age of 87 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Daily Mail obit.
Detroit Express Video
Express vs. Houston Hurricane at the Silverdome, August 1, 1979.
Downloads
5-2-1980 Keith Furphy sold to Atlanta Chiefs press release
5-2-1980 Keith Furphy Sold To Atlanta Press Release
4-30-1980 Express Drop 2nd Straight; Visit Edmonton This Sunday press release
5-4-1980 Express @ Edmonton Drillers Game Notes
Links
“Jimmy Hill’s ill-fated ownership of the Detroit Express and Washington Diplomats in NASL remembered“, Bob Williams, The Telegraph, December 22, 2015.
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