The California Sunshine were an Orange County-based club that played in the chaotic American Soccer League from 1977 until 1980. The ASL was the de facto 2nd division of American pro soccer in the latter half of the 1970’s. Southern California was an early hotbed of the youth soccer boom in the late 1970’s. The region was eagerly exploited by both the ASL and the more ambitious, bigger budgeted North American Soccer League.
The Syracuse Scorpions were a two-year entry in the lower-division American Soccer League. The team originally played their games on the outfield grass of MacArthur Stadium, the city’s minor league baseball stadium. But the ballpark burned down in May 1969 and was unusable for the rest of the summer, forcing both the Scorpions and the Syracuse Chiefs baseball team to find new arrangements. The Scorpions played at Griffin Field during the latter part of the 1969 season. The club disbanded following an abbreviate 1970 season.
This lower-division Boston-area men’s soccer club of the early 1970’s is perhaps best known for the last game it ever played: a nine (!) overtime stalemate in the 1975 American Soccer League championship game against the New York Apollo. The match only ended when league Commissioner Bob Cousy (yes, that Bob Cousy) stepped in and declared the exhausted clubs to be co-champions.
The New York Eagles were a nomadic/sporadic entry in the lower-division American Soccer League between 1978 and 1981 until years of bad debts and bounced checks finally sunk the club. The club drew poorly, as you might imagine from the team’s forlorn advertising brochure (left), showcasing the empty, rundown grandstand at Mt. Vernon’s Memorial Field in all its grainy, black-and-white decrepitude.
American Soccer League (1978) Born: 1978 – ASL expansion franchise Folded: January 31, 1979 First Game: April 22, 1978 (T 1-1 @ California Sunshine) Last
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