Philadelphia Atoms

North American Soccer League (1973-1976)

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Philadelphia Atoms Logo T from Old School Shirts

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)

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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!

Philadelphia Veterans Stadium T from Old School Shirts

Philadelphia Atoms Video

Atoms defeat the Dallas Tornado to capture the 1973 NASL championship. August 25, 1973.

1974 Philadelphia Atoms Highlight Video

Downloads

1973 Philadelphia Atoms Season Ticket Brochure

6-1-1973 Atoms vs. Montreal Olympique Game Notes

8-10-1973 Atoms vs. St. Louis Stars Game Notes

1976 Atoms Schedule Brochure

2015 FWiL interview with Atoms PR Director Doug Verb

Links

North American Soccer League Media Guides

North American Soccer League Programs

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