The Orange County Zodiac was a 2nd division farm club of Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy for three seasons between 1997 and 1999. The team struggled to gain attention and were particularly hurt by an ill-advised move to UC Irvine for the second season in 1998. The club would return to Santa Ana Stadium for a final campaign during the summer of 1999.
The Orange County Ramblers were a superb minor league football team that enjoyed a brief two-year existence in the late 1960’s. Under Head Coach Homer Beatty, the Ramblers assembled a 21-3 record over two regular seasons in the Continental Football League. The CoFL (1965-1969) existed one rung beneath the NFL and AFL and lived up to its ambitious name, with franchises stretched across the United States and Canada. Only one minor league squad in North American could lick the Ramblers – the Orlando Panthers, who defeated the Californians in the Continental League championship game in both 1967 and 1968.
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.
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