On July 20, the Earthquakes will host the Vancouver Whitecaps in league play for the first time in 27 years. The trans-dimensional, space-time continuum-shattering history of those two monikers goes back eons, and it was only a matter of time before stories began to emerge from the fog of people’s collective memories.
Both teams began as expansion clubs in the NASL, in 1974. The first league match for both teams was against each other on Sunday, May 5 of that year, at Empire Stadium in Vancouver. In front of 17,343 fans, Vancouver outshot the Quakes 29-10, but after regulation time, the score remained tied, 1-1. At that particular moment in NASL history, neither ties nor overtime existed. If the teams were even at the end of regulation, the game went straight to penalties.
Defender Mark Demling, the Earthquakes’ first ever draft pick, scored what proved to be the winner. He had only started because Laurie Calloway had injured his ankle during practice the week before.
“It went to the 10th kick,” Demling recalled. “Coach Gabbo Gavric asked Mirko, the goalie, if he wanted to take it. He declined and the tenth kick defaulted to me. We won our very first game and I had the winning kick in my very first professional game.”
After the match, a looming Canadian air strike almost stranded the entire San Jose team in Vancouver. Following the final whistle, GM Dick Berg informed the team that the last plane out would leave shortly. The Quakes had to make a mad dash for the airport without even hitting the showers.
Later in 1977, while again on the road in Vancouver, the entire San Jose Earthquakes squad went out and saw the hockey film, Slap Shot, in a local theater. The line to get in was long and a few Earthquakes players passed the time by entertaining the crowd outside. The other Demling brother, Buzz, performed double-jointed circus-like tricks with his arms while John Rowlands jokingly collected donations from a hat.
While watching Slap Shot, the Quakes were quite raucous in the theater because they totally identified with the team depicted in the film. Recalling the scene, Mark Demling explained the similarities.
“Slap Shot kind of mimicked our team,” he said. “We did a lot of the same things to sell the game. We did the fashion show thing. We had the Demling brothers, they had the Hanson brothers. We had a pretty boy and we had one guy that always talked nasty.”
While inaugural games, air strikes and public appearances by the whole team might already qualify as blockbuster episodes, no incident in the vast history of Quakes-Whitecaps tangles can possibly outdo the Willie Johnston beer swig goal of 1979 in San Jose. During what eventually became their championship season, the ‘Caps rolled into Spartan Stadium, an intimate venue renowned throughout the league for unparalleled fan interaction.
Vancouver was a man down, the game was tied 1-1, and former Glasgow Rangers legend Willie Johnston nabbed a swig from a fan’s beer before taking a corner kick for the Whitecaps. Spartan was always cherished for its tight confines, with fans nearly on top of the players. As Johnston carried the ball to the corner flag in preparation for the kick, a 24-year-old Frank Smillie leaned over the railing, beer in hand. Johnston motioned, the bottle exchanged hands and Willie took a swig. The corner kick then led directly to a goal by Peter Daniel:
Smillie, who now owns Promac Machining in Santa Clara, fondly recalls the episode: “Later that night it was on the news and they said something derogatory about me, as if I was some kind of convict or lunatic. What actually happened is he reached over and grabbed the beer out of my hand. I didn’t give it to him. He took it.”
Current Whitecaps FC President Bob Lenarduzzi played left back during that game. He said the incident was indicative of what people were able to get away with in the NASL, and Spartan Stadium in particular.
“If that was now, it’d be all over the world,” he said. “But it generated lots of attention, and it was Willie. Most people would assume that because of what Willie did on the field that he was an extrovert. But he was the complete opposite. He kept to himself. He wasn’t a man of a whole lot of words, but on the field—that’s where he expressed himself.”
To conclude, San Jose-Vancouver connections emerge wherever one looks. The last NASL game George Best ever played, for example, was the 1981 Quakes season finale at Vancouver. David Tossell’s book, Playing For Uncle Sam: The Brits’ Story Of The North American Soccer League, even features a photo of Best on the cover, as he battles a 20-year-old Peter Beardsley during that game.
Gary Singh lives and writes in his hometown of San Jose. He can be reached at gsingh@metronews.com. Facebook fan page: http://bit.ly/bpbTaj
