Dropping Timber has posted these videos from the 1975 playoff match between the North American Soccer League Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. The Timbers started off slowly that season at the gate, drawing just over 8,000 for their first home match. However, by the end of the year the stadium was packed. Meanwhile, Sounders FC were up north selling out every home match at expanded 18,000-seat Memorial Stadium.
It never got any better than this for the Timbers: a thrilling overtime match and victory over an arch rival. Portland went on to Soccer Bowl '75 but lost in the final 2:0 to the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The Sounders went on to draw bigger crowds than this in the Kingdome and to make two Soccer Bowl finals against the New York Cosmos, losing both times by a single goal.
The two rivals will face each other as co-first-division sides for the first time in 29 years when the Timbers join Major League Soccer in 2011.
Visit: 1975 Seattle Sounders Museum Page at GOALSeattle.com
Photo from 1975 season shows Seattle celebrating a goal at Memorial Stadium. Jimmy Gabriel's gap-toothed grin is at far right. (GOALSeattle.com Museum)
Comments
Cool to see the old stuff, still....*shudder*
a whole lot of scarf stealin'
If Portland built their dome at Delta Park they maybe would've have the same crowds as Seattle during the NASL days. But thanks for highlighting the dig, err, I mean, differences.
You think I am going to post videos of PDX's most famous win (happened almost four decades ago, LOL) without some kind of jab / reality check for them? Of course not. ;)
It's just as famous as the '76-'77 Blazers Championship, right?
Blazers > Timbers in PDX, but you knew that. Most famous Timbers win, though. Nothing tops that Blazers title. Hell, even I was pulling for them. :)
You mentioned a four-decade old triumph, we seem to have a lot of those around town. Bottle-bill, Tom McCall, etc. However, my parting shot [in blind-fan boy rage forgetting the USOC win last year] will point out the now [sans-Sonics] championship-less Seattle sports landscape. [forgets college sports, too] Such is the life of being a partisan observer.
If Seattle fans brag about bigger crowds at the Kingdome/Qwest Field, then that's like a Yankee fan razzing Red Sox fan for the much bigger crowds at Yankee Stadium, compared to Fenway--it's only because NY has a larger capacity park, of course---both cities are great, great baseball cities (just like PDX/Seattle in Soccer), but no one in their right mind would ever suggest NY is a BETTER baseball city than Boston...
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