Sports Then and Now

The Western New York Flash won their home opener 3-0 over Atlanta.

Any questions that remained (and this writer raised several in previous articles) about the chemistry between Marta and her new team, WNY Flash, and about the reception the Flash would receive at home, were settled at the Flash’s home opener Sunday in Sahlen’s Stadium.

Before anything more is said, this writer needs to eat some Sahlen’s hot-dog crow.

After only managing a tepid tie with Atlanta in Atlanta last week, on Marta’s debut with the club, I suggested the insertion of the Brazilian superstar was a detriment to team chemistry. Without Marta, the Flash made a powerful statement the previous week soundly defeating a much better Boston Breakers squad, and it appeared that Marta would be no help to the already stacked roster, and perhaps would be an energy drain.

As the Flash took the pitch in their home side red kits, the club dominated from whistle to whistle, and while she did not score, Marta was the engine behind the dominant performance. Her speed down the left flank was superhuman. She kept the Flash on the offensive end of the pitch nearly all match, as evidenced by the fact that Atlanta made only two shots on goal in the match. It took them 80 minutes to get the second shot. Read the rest of this entry →

Women’s Professional Soccer’s newest team came away from their season opener with a decisive win over Boston’s Breakers in front of more than 4,000 fans in Harvard Stadium.

Despite the fact that Boston opened their season a week ago in Atlanta, roundly defeating the Beat by 4-1, and despite the fact that the expansion Western New York Flash was playing their first real game without their star striker, the new girls on the block dominated every aspect of the match, eventually winning 2-1.

Their play wasn’t always pretty and despite some chances, it took them 64 minutes to score their first goal, but considering their headliner, Brazilian phenom, Marta, was unable to join her team mates due to delays in processing immigration paperwork, and considering the fact that this new team had no preseason contests against professional clubs at any level, they did well by themselves.

The Boston Breakers (1-1-0) were unable to come back from a two-goal deficit Sunday night in their first home game of the season. In fact, the score doesn’t really tell the story. Boston was kept off the scoreboard until well into stoppage time. After Flash keeper Ashlyn Harris made an acrobatic stop, The Breakers’ Kelly Smith tapped the rebound into the box, seconds before the final whistle. Read the rest of this entry →

Remember the bumper sticker, “What if they threw a war and nobody came?” And then there’s the conundrum about a tree falling in the forest when no one is there.

As the third season of Women’s Professional Soccer draws near, it is possible that the world’s best women’s soccer team will be the tree in the forest unobserved, the war left un-attended.

Western New York is already the center of the women’s soccer world in the sense that meat mogul Joe Sahlen, third generation owner of Sahlen Packing Company in the Buffalo suburbs, singlehandely saved Women’s Professional Soccer. Had Sahlen not come forward offering to buy in with an expansion team, the league would have folded for lack of teams.

After 2010 league champion FC Gold Pride (Bay Area) folded and the Chicago Red Stars suspended play for a season while looking for additional investors, the five remaining clubs in the league would have been one member short of what league management had determined to be the minimum number of teams required to have a meaningful season.

Enter Joe Sahlen, whose Buffalo Flash had just one the W-League championship in only their second year of play, coached by Sahlen’s son-in-law, former New Zealand international Aaron Lines, with Sahlen’s daughter Alexandra on the roster. Sahlen admitted he bought the franchise for the benefit of his daughter, and as a man who likes keeping business in the family, acted completely in character by employing her husband as their coach. Read the rest of this entry →

Of course the Champions League was not the original name of Europe’s premier soccer competition before it changed from the European Cup in 1992 after the new format and Champions League name was introduced by UEFA. Before that, it had always been a straightforward knock out competition, with each round being played over two matches on a home and away basis, until the final which was just one match. It was competed for by 16 teams who had won their country’s domestic championship with the final, like it is now, played in a stadium of a pre-selected country.

Celtic, as all involved with Soccer will know, became the first club from Britain to win the European Cup, which they achieved in 1967 against the formidable Inter Milan team, who had won the tournament in both 1965 and 1966. Celtic were complete underdogs, but few outside Scotland realised that the team, that would become known as the ‘Lisbon Lions’ had developed hugely and quickly under the guidance of their manager, Jock Stein and boasted a squad of players that could play at International level with many of them being the best in Europe in their positions.

Celtic in fact in 1967 had only just begun their run of success under Stein that eventually brought them nine consecutive Scottish League titles, between 1966 and 1974, Under Stein they also won eight Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups and reached a further European Cup Final in 1970 becoming the first British Club to reach two European Cup Finals; unfortunately they lost that one by 1-2 to Dutch side, Feyenoord.

In the first round of the 1967 competition, Celtic easily saw off the challenge of FC Zurich, winning 5-0 on aggregate, while the other two British teams who had qualified, Liverpool from England and Linfield from Northern Ireland, also qualified.

Celtic also won their second round tie with French Champions, Nantes, winning both legs 3-1, but Liverpool under Bill Shankly were knocked out by an Ajax team that included a certain Johan Cruyf in their team, but Linfield shocked everybody, upsetting the Euro odds, qualifying for the Quarter Final after an emphatic aggregate victory over Valerenga of Norway.

It was a lot tougher for Celtic in the quarter final, particularly after losing the first leg by 0-1 to FC Vojvodina of Yugoslavia. They managed to equalise that score after an hour of play in the second leg in Glasgow, but they had to wait until the last minute to win the match when captain, Billy McNeil headed home. Linfield very nearly qualified too only losing on aggregate by 2-3 to CSKA Sofia.

Celtic were drawn to face the great Czech side of the day Dukla Prague and won the first leg by 3-1 in Glasgow meaning that they had one foot in the final with a resolve that told football followers everywhere that they were not going to fall victim of fate like other British clubs had at this stage in the tournament in the past. Far from it, Celtic were going to the final in Lisbon and were not going to be stopped by any team; and as we all know they got there by drawing the away leg 0-0 and creating history by becoming the first British team to make the final. It was now just a question of winning the final against Inter.

Celtic fans arrived in the Portuguese capital in their thousands, many without tickets, but such was the optimism it became difficult to believe that Celtic could actually lose. However, a bad tackle from full back Tommy Craig on the skilful winger Capellini, in the box gave the Italian Champions a penalty which Italian International, Sandro Mazzola converted to give his side the lead, which stayed that way until half time.

Celtic who played a very quick passing game in a 4-2-4 formation began to get to grips with the match in the second half. Being behind possibly helped their cause as they knew that they had to attack to get on level terms and attack they did. They ran the Italians ragged until finally in the 62nd minute Full back Tommy Gemmell smashed the ball past the hapless Inter goalkeeper from 25 yards.

After that the game was all but over, Inter had no idea how to stop the Celtic momentum and the ‘Hoops’ just continued where they left off, with wave after wave of attacks. The game was decided with five minutes to go when Gemmell slid the ball into the path of Bobby Murdoch whose subsequent shot was deflected in by top scorer Steve Chalmers. Celtic had won, and the ‘Lions of Lisbon’ legend was born. Amazingly the Celtic team that day of Simpson, Craig, McNeill (capt.), Clark, Gemmell, Murdoch, Auld, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Lennox were all born within a thirty mile radius of Glasgow and most had been nurtured by the club from youth level upwards, an amazing achievement for home grown talent in any sportnot just soccer and one that should and is still fondly acknowledged and remembered to this day.

Ku Casino

Nat Lofthouse scored 255 goals in his career for the Bolton Wanderers.

It was a very sad day for Bolton Wanderers and English football fans with the announcement of the passing away of the great Nat Lofthouse, one of the greatest centre forwards England ever produce. He was 85 years old when he died on January 15th.

Lofthouse spent his entire playing career at Bolton Wanderers and by the time he had played his last game for them in 1960, he had turned made 452 appearances scoring 255 goals. He made his debut in fact for Bolton as a 21 year old in August 1946 and scored twice despite being on the losing side against Chelsea.

These days Nat would be described as an old fashioned Centre Forward who in his day would have the ability to terrify defenders with his physical presence, his shooting instincts and his incredible ability to attack the ball with his head. In those days of course, a football was a far cry from what they are today and players risked head injury and head lacerations when heading the ball. Nat Lofthouse was one of the great headers of the ball however, scoring many of his goals with his and becoming easily one of the best ball attackers in the world.

Whilst a Bolton player, Lofthouse played in two FA Cup finals, losing the first one in the famous 1953 ‘Stanley Matthews’ Blackpool final where he still managed to score the Bolton goal and created a record that year by scoring in every round of the competition. He was also named 1953 footballer of the year. Read the rest of this entry →

The Western New York Flash made Alex Morgan the first pick in the WPS Draft.

Women’s Professional Soccer held its third annual college draft Friday at the 2011 NSCAA Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.

A surprise to few in the audience, expansion Western New York Flash selected California standout and U.S. national team rising star, forward Alex Morgan with the top pick in the draft, while also nabbing The University of Portland’s Elli Reed as the first defender in the draft with the number eight overall selection.

The Flash had no selections in round two. In round three, the Flash took Notre Dame midfielder Rose Augustin, and chose local favorite, a keeper, Ashleigh Bowers of Niagara.

The Western New York club made a splash in sponsorship as well, at the draft. WPS CEO Anne-Marie Eileraas officially opened the proceedings by announcing the league’s sixth national sponsor, Sahlen’s Hot Dogs. Sahlen’s owner, Joe Sahlen, is also the owner of the Flash. Now his product will not only be the official hot dog of the Buffalo Bills but will be the official hot dog of WPS and will be the hot dog served at all WPS venues, as the company logo will don all WPS jerseys. Read the rest of this entry →