Soccer town Tampa Bay: It was a kick in the grass

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Soccer town Tampa Bay: It was a kick in the grass

Sue Carlton, Times Columnist

Thursday, November 27, 2014 6:20pm

Once upon a time, this was a soccer town. Before Tampa Bay had its Buccaneers, long before the Lightning hit the ice or the first Devil Ray hefted a bat at the Trop, this town loved its Rowdies.

Fans streamed into Tampa Stadium in team green and yellow, learned that the field was now a "pitch" and sang a merry fight song that called the team a kick in the grass. Crowds averaged more than 12,000 that first season in 1975, and a 1980 match drew a record 56,000 spectators.

Farrukh Quraishi, now 63, was on that first team — still remembered, all these years later, by the Rowdie faithful.

When a broken leg benched him for a time — a tangle with the foot of a player from Toronto — he started hanging out on the business side of things, sitting in on advertising meetings, hosting a sports and talk show on TV. Maybe things happen for a reason.

After the league folded, Quraishi helped shape another team, the Mutiny. He ran the World Cup when it came to Orlando and pushed to bring that same huge event to Tampa — no dice on that one, though.

America has an interesting relationship with soccer. It has its fans and not. In a scene from Mad Men, a British fellow enthusiastically mentions the World Cup. Roger Sterling, the show's silver-haired, Stoli-sipping ad man, snarks, "Cup of what?"

Quraishi watches American football. He admires the skill in baseball and hockey, too.

"But obviously," he said, "soccer's my first love."

And so today is full circle: Quraishi was just named president and general manager of the Tampa Bay Rowdies in its latest incarnation, playing these days at Al Lang Stadium in bustling downtown St. Petersburg. He smiles at the symmetry.

So my question: Why did Tampa Bay take to the Rowdies in such a big way back then — besides, you know, all the stuff that makes soccer the most popular sport elsewhere in the world?

In 1977, no less than Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said this in Sports Illustrated: "If anyone asked me how to start and operate any kind of franchise, I'd tell them to study the Rowdies. It is simply the best marketing in sports. From the top on down, it's a group of geniuses that have put it together. They have done the one thing that most teams fail at in all sports — in Tampa, they've made going to the soccer game the thing to do."

Quraishi points to the contract clause that required players to make lots of public appearances. They were to be the face of soccer, live and in person.

Fans knew where the Rowdies would be after a game to chat — Boneshakers in Hyde Park one night, Victoria Station near the stadium on another. The Rowdies had a regular Monday luncheon. Players were always showing up at public events and even kids' birthday parties. To this day, people come up to Quraishi and say, "I remember when you came to my junior high years ago." Fans remember the words to the song.

"It was a love affair between the team and the community," Quraishi said. "And it went both ways."

There was no competition then from other professional teams. Plus, they won.

"We won more than we lost," he said. And it was fun — the band called the Loudies, the cheerleaders who were Wowdies and, of course, the Fannies. As Quraishi put it, "People really felt we were their team."