Chicago Sting
The Chicago Sting was an American professional soccer team representing Chicago. The Sting played in the North American Soccer League from 1975 to 1984 and in the Major Indoor Soccer League in the 1982–83 season and again from 1984 to 1988. They were North American Soccer League champions in 1981 and 1984, one of only two NASL teams to win the championship twice.
The Sting were founded in 1974 by Lee Stern of Chicago and competed in the NASL for the first time in the 1975 season. A few years after founding the Sting, Stern brought Willy Roy on as head coach. Roy coached the Sting for the remainder of their outdoor existence.
The team was named in reference to the popular 1973 film, The Sting, whose action was set in Chicago of the 1930s.
The club played at various venues. The outdoor team played their home games at Soldier Field, Wrigley Field, and Comiskey Park. In 1976 the indoor squad called the International Amphitheatre home, before subsequently using Chicago Stadium and the Rosemont Horizon.
Stern, Foulkes, Hill and May
1974–75: The Chicago Sting were the dream child of Lee Stern, a leading Chicago commodities broker, who in 1974 took an expensive gamble that his hometown would accept soccer as a major league sport. Stern turned to England for a coach in the shape of 'Busby Babe' Bill Foulkes, the former Manchester United defender.Foulkes built a team of predominantly British players including Gordon Hill and Eddie May. Hill would later win 6 England caps and play over a hundred games for Manchester United including the 1976 FA Cup Final. In Chicago he hit six goals in the Sting's inaugural season and firmly established himself as a fan's favorite as did May who despite playing all of his career in the UK as a central defender, was used by Foulkes as a target man scoring 7 times in 18 games which included the winner on his debut in Sting's 1–0 victory over Los Angeles Aztecs, just 24 hours after arriving into Chicago from Welsh club Wrexham.
In the summer of 1975 a sparse crowd of 4,500 watched the Sting's very first home game and as it began so it continued with an average that year of around the 4,000 mark – although close to 14,000 did turn out to see the Sting take on the 1974 Polish World Cup team in a one-off exhibition.
The Sting missed out on the playoffs by a single point losing the final game of the season in a penalty shoot-out.
Cosmos doubled, Willie Morgan, Foulkes quits
In 1976, more players from the British Isles joined The Sting. Polish striker Janusz Kowalik, who had found success during his only season with the Chicago Mustangs eight years earlier, joined as well.Although the British incomers were less famous – John James, John Lowey, Lammie Robertson and Alan Waldron – the club won its first honor in the form of the Northern Division title.
Although the team lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Toronto Blizzard, they had twice defeated the New York Cosmos in regular season play, first winning two-nil in New York, and then at home 4–1.
Before the 1977 season, head coach Bill Foulkes signed Willie Morgan who would prove to be one of the most successful and popular players in the NASL's history. Morgan, had played over 500 games in the Football League for Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and Manchester United. Also arriving from the UK was Ronnie Moore a prolific striker from Tranmere Rovers, but despite these additions the Sting played poorly and Foulkes resigned halfway through the season leaving Willy Roy, his assistant, as interim coach.
Roy, a German by birth who had arrived with his family in Chicago at the age of six, was a veteran of the early years of the NASL and its forerunner the NPSL. The Sting finished the season with a 10 win 16 loss record.
Musgrove disaster, Karl-Heinz Granitza signs
At the beginning of the 1978 NASL season the Sting lost its first ten matches, not the start owner Lee Stern had hoped for when he hired Clive Toye as new club president who in turn had hired Malcolm Musgrove as the team's new head coach. Toye had been one of the people behind the success of the New York Cosmos, while Musgrove, a former left-winger with West Ham United was a coach with a growing reputation.Musgrove had spent heavily, bringing in four new players: Karl-Heinz Granitza, Arno Steffenhagen, Horst Blankenburg and Jørgen Kristensen. After the poor start, Musgrove was fired and Willy Roy was rehired as coach. The effect was immediate – ten wins were recorded in the last fourteen regular season games – and the Sting moved up from last place to second place in the Central Division to win a playoff berth.
Although eliminated from the playoffs by the Tampa Bay Rowdies the Sting won compliments for their aggressive play, scoring thirty-eight goals in those final fourteen games.
Willy Roy appointed coach, On the brink
1979: At the end of the 1978 NASL season Willy Roy was appointed head coach. The Sting were on their way to becoming one of the best sides in the league and to ensure continued success Roy brought in four new players who would all play their part in the franchises best season yet: Wim van Hanegem arrived from Dutch side AZ, Luigi Martini from SS Lazio, Thomas Sjoberg from Malmö FF along with former Feyenoord man Peter Ressel.All number of club records were broken as the Sting scored 70 goals – Karl-Heinz Granitza weighing in with 20 – and the average home attendance increased to a respectable 8,000, 21,000 plus turning out at Wrigley Field to see the New York Cosmos defeated 3–1. The Fort Lauderdale Strikers were beaten in the first round of the playoffs but the San Diego Sockers proved to be too strong for Chicago and booked a place in the American Conference Finals with a 2–0 win in California followed by a 1–0 victory at Wrigley Field.
1980: Phil Parkes, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers 'keeper, became the Sting's number 1, moving to Chicago from the Vancouver Whitecaps where he had played for the past three seasons and established himself as the NASL's top glovesman. Also joining the Sting line-up were Ingo Peter and Frantz Mathieu, a Haitian defender, who joined from FC St. Pauli.
The Sting took the Central Division title with a 21–11 record, 16 of those wins coming in their first 19 games. Karl-Heinz Granitza was again leading marksman with 19 goals and 26 assists, while Arno Steffenhagen took second place with 15 strikes and 15 assists from midfield.
The 1980 campaign, and the 1980–81 Indoor Season that followed, were major turning points as far as the Chicago public were concerned and the club started to attract large crowds on a regular basis. 26,468 saw the Sting take on the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Wrigley Field, 18,112 watched the Washington Diplomats home fixture, and two other matches drew crowds in excess of 16,000, while indoors 16,257 packed the Chicago Stadium for one game as the Sting's reached – but lost – the NASL Championship finals.
1981 Championship Season
1981: The addition of Pato Margetic to the Sting front line – Margetic had joined from the Detroit Express – showed coach Will Roy's attacking intent for the coming campaign, indeed the club would finish as the NASL leading scorers with 81 goals.The turning point in the season came at the end of the June when a new club record crowd of 30,501 turned out at Wrigley Field to see the Sting beat the New York Cosmos 6–5 after a shootout. This signalled the start of an eight-game winning streak.
The Central Division title was confirmed as the Sting completed the regular season with three straight home wins. The Dallas Tornado were beaten 3–1, the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers by a 7–2 margin and the Tulsa Roughnecks 5–4 to end the campaign with a 23 wins and 9 defeats.
In the first round of the playoffs the Seattle Sounders were beaten by two games to one and the Sting advanced to round two and a date with the Montreal Manic. A record soccer crowd of 58,542 in Montreal's Olympic Stadium saw the Manic take the first game 3–2, but the Sting bounced back to win games two and three both by a 4–2 margin, game three being won despite being 2–1 down with nine minutes left to play.
The San Diego Sockers now stood between the Sting and a first Soccer Bowl appearance. Two late goals by the Californian side gave them first blood and a 2–1 win, but the Sting won game two by the same scoreline in front of 21,760 at Comiskey Park. Five days later 39,623 Chicagoans saw the Sting take the series with a 1–0 overtime victory at the same venue. The Sting were heading for a Soccer Bowl showdown with the New York Cosmos.
[Soccer Bowl '81]
Eighteen years without a major sporting honor ended for the city of Chicago as the Sting won the NASL Championship to give the Windy City its first professional sports title since the Chicago Bears had won the NFL Championship Game in 1963. On that occasion the Bears had beaten the New York Giants and the Sting's triumph would be earned against another New York team, the Cosmos.A crowd of 36,971 – including some 6,000 from Chicago – were on hand at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium and they could have been forgiven for expecting a high scoring game as the two previous meetings between the Sting and the Cosmos that year had produced fifteen goals. So it was very much against the odds – after the normal 90 minutes and a further 15 minutes of sudden death overtime – that this game would end goalless.
Each side had plenty of scoring opportunities though, the closest of which came from the Sting's Pato Margetic whose strike was saved by a fully extended Hubert Birkenmeier in the Cosmos goal, teammate Ingo Peter's saw his header strike the crossbar and then the upright, and an overhead kick by Giorgio Chinaglia went just wide of the Sting goal.
Despite that effort, Chinaglia, the NASL's all-time leading scorer, was marshaled well by the defensive partnership of Frantz Mathieu and Paul Hahn, supply from the flanks by the Cosmos wingers was kept to a minimum by Dave Huson and Derek Spalding, the Sting's two fullbacks, while in goal Dieter Ferner put in another exemplary shift. At the other end the Cosmos backline, aided by Birkenmeier, was just as effective.
Twice in regular season play the Sting had needed extra time to beat the Cosmos and the same would be the case in Toronto. New York took the lead after three rounds through Vladislav Bogicevic, Karl-Heinz Granitza then leveled things up before Ferner made a great save to keep out Ivan Buljan's chipped shot. Rudy Glenn then stepped up to beat Birkenmeier to become the first native North American to score a winning goal in a Soccer Bowl.
Joint captains Ingo Peter and Spalding proudly accepted the Championship Trophy from NASL Commissioner Phil Woosnam to confirm the Sting as the North American Soccer League champions for 1981.