Philadelphia Atoms

North American Soccer League (1973-1976)

Tombstone

Born: January 25, 1973 – NASL expansion franchise¹
Folded: 1976

First Game: May 5, 1973 (L 1-0 @ St. Louis Stars)
Last Game: August 13, 1976 (L 4-3 @ Washington Diplomats)

NASL Champions: 1973

Stadia

1973-1975: Veterans Stadium (67,375)²
Opened: 1971
Demolished: 2004

1976: Franklin Field
Opened: 1895

Marketing

Team Colors: Royal Blue & White³

Ownership

Owners:

1973-1975: Thomas McCloskey
1976: United Clubs of Jalisco (Jose Cardenas, et al.)

Attendance

Tap (mobile) or mouse over chart for figures. Tilting your mobile device may offer better viewing.

Source: Kenn.com Attendance Project

Background

The Philadelphia Atoms, a short-lived North American Soccer League club, gained notoriety for its charmed debut season of 1973. Among the 1973 squad’s fine achievements:

Won the NASL championship in their expansion season
On September 3, 1973, Atoms goalkeeper Bob Rigby became the first American pro soccer player to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated
Led the NASL in attendance at 11,501 per match, nearly double the league average

The Atoms were also one of the early innovators of the sport of indoor soccer, facing CSKA of Moscow in an exhibition before 11,790 fans at the Spectrum on February 11th, 1974.

Fission to Fizzle

After the Atoms’ Cinderella debut in 1973, the club’s star faded rapidly and the team’s stature – both on-field and at the box office – was eclipsed by various members of the NASL’s 1974 and 1975 expansion classes, including the San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps and Tampa Bay Rowdies. While these clubs have enjoyed big-budget modern day brand revivals, reunions and celebrations of their histories, the Atoms have been relegated to the dusty curio box of NASL memories.

Original Atoms owner Thomas McCloskey unloaded the team to a consortium of Mexican soccer club owners prior to the club’s fourth and final season in 1976. The team fielded a mostly Mexican roster that summer, fared poorly and folded at the end of the season.

In 2015, Fun While It Lasted interviewed Doug Verb, the Atoms PR Director during the club’s final tumultuous season in 1976. And, well … you should hear Doug tell it.

Voices

“We had a lot of the same problems that other teams had. We were terrible on the field. There was no money for marketing. We had a terrible schedule – if it was Easter Sunday or Mother’s Day or the 4^th of July, that meant the Atoms had a home game. And we had absentee owners. The Atoms were owned by the four 1^st Division teams in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Like I said, lots of soccer teams had those problems back then. But we also had a problem that nobody else had: no one on the Atoms spoke English and we played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

– Doug Verb, Public Relations Director 1976 (2015 FWiL Interview)