Tombstone
Born: 1976 – ASL expansion franchise
Folded: Postseason 1976
First Game: April 24, 1976 (T 1-1 @ Los Angeles Skyhawks)
Last Game: August 12, 1976 (L 1-0 @ Sacramento Spirits)
ASL Championships: None
Stadia
Edwards Stadium (20,753)
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner: Jaime Ruiz Llaguno, Juan Jose Camacho, Leon Crosby, et al.
Background
The Oakland Buccaneers (also known as the Golden Bay Buccaneers) were an obscure U.S. pro soccer club that played one season in the summer of 1976. The team was a typical lower-division disaster of the era, beset by bounced paychecks, non-existent promotion and vanishing owners.
The Buccs were founded in early 1976 as part of a nationwide expansion of the 43-year old American Soccer League. The ASL was traditionally a Northeastern semi-pro collection of ethnic clubs. But the league became fully professional in the 1970’s and became the de facto 2nd Division of American soccer. Clubs in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and Salt Lake City were added in 1976 to give the ASL a true national footprint for the first time. All but the Los Angeles Skyhawks franchise turned out to be shoddily organized basket cases.
The founder and principal owner of the Buccs was a tequila exporter from Guadalajara named Jaime Ruiz Llaguno. Llaguno signed former C.D. Guadalajara manager Javier De La Torre to coach the team and talked of playing at the Oakland Coliseum. That grandiose plan fell through and the Buccs wound up at Edwards Stadium, the track and field venue at California-Berkeley. Midway through the season, Llaguno abandoned the club.
Demise
Without any sort of announcement, the team left Berkeley and shifted its games to Tak Fudenna Stadium, a high school football field in Fremont. The players and a couple of staff members soldiered on without pay and somehow managed to complete 18 of 21 scheduled games. The Oakland Buccaneers finished their only season with a record of 6-10-2.
The penniless club operated the final months of the 1976 season without so much as a working phone line, a subject of frequent mockery by The Oakland Tribune and the Fremont-based Argus, both of which somewhat inexplicably gave the team coverage.
The American Soccer League went out of business in early 1984.
Oakland Buccaneers Shop
Downloads
April 29, 1976 Ricardo Ordonez Named General Manager Press Release
4-29-1976 Ricardo Ordonez Named General Manager
May 17, 1976 Name Change to Golden Bay Buccaneers Press Release
May 1976 Buccaneers to Host Cork Hibernians Media Alert
June 6, 1976 Oakland Buccaneers vs. Cork Hibernians (Ireland) Program
June 14, 1976 Bucs 3-0 Salvo Sinks New Jersey Press Release
June 1976 Oakland Buccaneers Fan Survey
Links
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3 Responses
How did Tak Fudenna Stadium get its name?
I found this on a info page about Washington High School in Fremont, CA. It was a mid-season move looking for cheaper rent.
“Construction of a sports stadium was started in the summer of 1972 and on October 12, 1972 it was dedicated as the Tak Fudenna Memorial Stadium in honor of 1939 WHS graduate, Takeo Fudenna, who gave much to the community and this project and who had died the previous August in an accident.”
The next ASL franchise in the Bay Area, the 1980 Golden Gate Gales, also relocated to Tak Fudenna Stadium after only six games at California State University, Hayward (now CSU East Bay) because of dismal attendance figures. I was at one of those Hayward games. The crowd was a small one as I recall.
This link has a article about Mr. Fudenna. He was in WWII as a member of the highly decorated US Army 442 Regiment where he received a Bronze Star.
https://pachofaunfinished.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/an-ucommon-man/