Buffalo Storm were an American professional soccer team. They played for one season (1984) in the United Soccer League, with home games at All-High Stadium.
The early 1980s were a lean and difficult time for professional outdoor soccer in the United States. The North American Soccer League was in significant decline following the "boom years" of the late 1970s, undone by a period of over-expansion and overspending that created an unstable environment in which teams were constantly folding or moving to new cities. By 1984, only nine teams were left in the league (down from a peak of twenty-four in 1980). The de facto second division American Soccer League had likewise doomed itself to instability and difficult economic realities when it expanded beyond the northeastern United States, where it had operated very modestly since 1933, and tried to establish a foothold on the west coast in the '70s and southern states in the '80s. These expansions produced a string of short-lived franchises, and the league had contracted to only six teams in 1983. [1] [2]
At the ASL's annual league meetings in January 1984, two of the remaining six teams announced plans to go "dormant" for 1984. Despite this, the league rejected a proposal for an expansion team in Fort Lauderdale, which prompted the owners of the Jacksonville Tea Men and Dallas Americans to break away and start planning a new second division league, which they named the United Soccer League. Their vision was a stable league in which teams could operate within their means and take a more "grass roots" approach to building a fan base in their communities. Year-round operation (with an indoor season in the winter), a strict salary cap, a focus on American players and a mostly regional schedule to reduce travel costs were all pillars on which this new league was to be founded. Three ASL clubs would end up coming directly to the USL, while two other clubs were re-organized and renamed for USL membership. [2] Four new teams also joined the league, one of which would be the Buffalo Storm.
The new Buffalo team was led by two men whose history together dated back to the defunct Rochester Lancers of the NASL. Owner Sal DeRosa had been the Lancers' head coach for a few years in the '70s (including for their 1970 championship season), and he chose former Lancers all-star midfielder Francisco "Pancho" Escos to be the Storm's coach. [3] They officially announced their existence in April.
In between working together in Rochester and founding the Storm, DeRosa and Escos were both part of the Buffalo Stallions of the Major Indoor Soccer League (DeRosa as vice president and GM, Escos as a player), and they took advantage of this connection when assembling their new team. Eleven Stallions players joined the Storm's roster. The team was placed into the USL's Northern Division along with the New York Nationals and Rochester Flash. Buffalo's season began on May 19th with a 2–1 loss at Jacksonville. [3] The Storm would be a "middle of the pack" team in the league as a whole, finishing with an 11–13 record. However, the Northern Division would turn out to be the weakest in the league, and the team ended up qualifying for the playoffs as division winners, earning them a best-of-three semifinals matchup with the Fort Lauderdale Sun. Sal DeRosa chose to surrender the team's right to host the first game in the series at home since it would mean a mid-week game at All High Stadium, which did not have lights. The Sun eliminated the Storm by scores of 3-0 and 5-1. [4] [1]
The Storm faced two substantial challenges in joining the upstart USL. The first was that they only had about six weeks in between announcing their existence and the beginning of league play, leaving precious little time to drum up sponsors, investors or fans. [3] The other was having to play all home games at a field without lights. Official attendance figures were not kept, but one contemporary media source listed the average attendance for Buffalo home games at less than 1,000 fans per game. [4] Despite the USL's austere financial design, the Storm were not able to balance the books in these conditions. Most of the rest of the league was not faring much better. The indoor season that had been discussed at the league's founding never materialized. Shortly after discussions for a USL/NASL merger fell apart in February/March 1985, Buffalo was one of the five USL teams who chose to fold. The MISL's Stallions had "suspended" operations to re-organize the previous July but ultimately never re-started, so the folding of the Storm left Buffalo without any professional soccer until the formation of the Buffalo Blizzard in the indoor NPSL in 1992. [2] [5]
Dennis Mepham 1984 Randy Pikuzinski 1984 Rudy Pikuzinski 1984 Otto Orf 1984 Dave Lischner 1984 Pat Occhiuto 1984
Carlos Salguero 1984 Ernesto Buriano 1984 Oscar Pisano 1984
Herve Guilliod 1984
Niels Guldbjerg 1984
The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the United States. The league final was called the Soccer Bowl from 1975 to 1983 and the Soccer Bowl Series in its final year, 1984. The league was headed by Commissioner Phil Woosnam from 1969 to 1983. The NASL laid the foundations for soccer in the United States that helped lead to the country hosting the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the set-up of Major League Soccer (MLS) in 1996.
Fort Lauderdale Sun was a U.S. soccer team which played two seasons in the United Soccer League. In 1984, the team was known as the Fort Lauderdale Sun. Before the 1985 season they changed their name to the South Florida Sun.
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The United Soccer League was a professional soccer league in the United States in 1984 and 85.
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The Fort Lauderdale Strikers were an American soccer team established in 1988 as part of the third American Soccer League. In 1990, it moved to the American Professional Soccer League where it spent five seasons before folding in 1994. The Strikers won the 1989 ASL championship, as well as the 1989 National Pro Soccer Championship.
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Salvatore "Sal" DeRosa was a naturalized American soccer coach best known for winning the 1970 North American Soccer League Championship with Rochester Lancers.
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