The Connecticut Yankees were a 2nd Division pro soccer team that roamed across the state in search of fans during the mid-to-late 1970’s, starting at Hartford’s Dillon Stadium and later playing out of East Haven and Stamford.
The Connecticut Wildcats were the first of several pro soccer clubs to set up shop at Hartford’s Dillon Stadium during the mid-1970’s. The club formed in November 1972 as an expansion franchise in the 2nd Division American Soccer League. The Wildcats best-known player, in retrospect, was the young goalkeeper Tony DiCicco. DiCicco went on to become one of the greatest coaches in the women’s game, leading the U.S. Women’s National Team to Olympic gold in 1996 and the World Cup in 1999.
The Knights replaced the defunct Hartford Charter Oaks minor league football team on the local sports scene after the Oaks folded in early 1968. Like the Oaks before them, the Knights played out of 10,000-seat Dillon Stadium. The Knights quickly established themselves as one of the finest minor league football squads of the 1960’s. The team formed a loose working agreement with the Buffalo Bills of the American Football League and won the championship of the Atlantic Coast Football League in their 1968 expansion season. The Knights went on to appear in five straight minor league title games.
[Team owner Bob] Darling picked that Bicentennials name in 1975 because 1976 was going to be the American bicentennial, right? I said: ‘What about after 1976? What are we gonna be then? The 19-seventy-seven-tennials?’ It was a terrible name. Not much meaning to it and too long to fit in the headlines. So we became known as the ‘Bi’s’ in the papers, which I didn’t care for because it sounded like the team was bi-sexual.”
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