If there is one thing lacking when it comes to modern football tours, it is usually the football.
Money, adulation and marketing are the key tenets of a well-planned, well-publicised pre-season visit. Sporting gains are usually far outweighed by financial ones.
What, then, would the Premier League bean counters have made of Dallas Tornado, and their extraordinary world tour of 1967-68? Playing 32 games, across five continents and 26 countries over a seven-month period, Dallas, in just about every sense, took on the world. From Spain in August to Honduras in March, via Christmas in Tokyo and New Year in Manila, this was genuine football globetrotting. And long before it was fashionable, too. No product-placement, milking the market or "expanding the brand" here.
Dallas' journey saw them cheat death, Final Destination style, at the hands of Greek-Cypriot terrorists, visit Vietnam whilst war raged around them, and survive an on-pitch riot in Singapore. The football, at times, must have felt like a sideshow. Some sideshow, mind. During the tour, Tornado played in front of crowds of up to 50,000, and against sides of the calibre of Real Oviedo, Fenerbahce and the Japanese national team.
"An amazing trip that will never be repeated again," is how Bill Crosbie, one of the players involved, describes the tour. Even that hardly seems to do it justice. This was a plot worthy of Hollywood.
Crosbie was a 19-year-old bus conductor when he answered an advert in the Liverpool Echo, looking for "top-class amateur footballers". Soon afterwards, he was asked to attend an interview at the city's Adelphi Hotel.
There, he found a man named Bob Kap. Serbian by birth, Kap – real name Božidar Kapušto – had studied alongside Ferenc Puskas at the Hungarian national football academy, but was forced to flee Europe during the 1956 uprising.
He moved to Toronto, Canada, where he worked briefly as a reporter for a local football magazine. His true passion, though, was always for coaching. So when Dallas, looking for someone to prepare a team for the inaugural North American Soccer League, came calling, he jumped at the chance. Kap used his contacts to recruit from across Europe. Eight of the touring side were English, and seven of those were Merseysiders. They were supplemented by five Norwegians, two Dutchmen, two Swedes and, improbably, just one American, Jay Moore.
Crosbie remembers his initial meeting with Kap well: "I was asked a lot of questions, about the amateur teams I had played for, how fast a runner I was, why I wanted to join his team, things like that."
Flanking the coach was Dave Moorcroft, a local amateur player of some pedigree. Moorcroft had played for Skelmersdale United at Wembley in the FA Amateur Cup final, and would go on to play more than 100 times for Tranmere Rovers. "He was there to vet the players," remembers Crosbie. "I remember leaving thinking that was the last I would hear on that."
He was wrong. A month later, a telegram arrived at his home, asking him to a second meeting, this time at the Regent Hotel. It was the message that would change his life. "He asked me how much notice I would have to give at work," says Crosbie. "I said two weeks, but in extreme circumstances one week. He told me if I wanted to join his team then I would have to fly to the South of France the following morning!"
Crosbie, who had he been on duty that night would have missed Kap's telegram, agreed, only to be told there was a further condition from his new manager. "Bob told me that the next time he saw me, I had better have had a haircut!" he remembers. "My hair was shoulder-length at the time, very much like The Beatles, but Bob wanted an All American look, crew cuts for everyone. It had to go."
Luckily, one of Crosbie's neighbours was a hairdresser, and so was summoned to an emergency 10pm appointment. Bill's brother was given a resignation letter to hand in to his bosses, and that was that. He was on the first train out of Lime Street the following morning. "We did not have a phone, so I could not even contact my girlfriend to say goodbye!" Crosbie laughs.
Together with another Scouser, Bobby Roach, Crosbie flew to Nice to join up with the side. Tornado had already played five games by that point, visiting both Spain and Morocco. The last was a 4-0 defeat to Real Oviedo, then playing in the Segunda Division. With Crosbie and Bobby Roach on board, and with the players instructed to wear club suits complete with Stetson hats wherever they went, Dallas travelled to Istanbul, drawing 2-2 with the Turkish champions Fenerbahce, having led 2-0 at one stage, in front of a crowd of 25,000. Crosbie missed the game with a virus, which doctors believed was caused by undergoing too many injections within a short space of time.
Their next game was to take place in Cyprus, though fate would rear its head before then.
After a day sightseeing at the Acropolis, the team were delayed heading to the airport and missed their flight from Athens to Nicosia by half an hour. Lucky them. Flight BEA CY284 exploded at 29,000ft after a bomb was detonated under a seat, killing 63 people. Its intended target, the Greek army general Georgios Grivas, had also missed the flight, and later travelled to Nicosia on the same plane as the Tornado team.
"Missing that plane was the best thing we ever did," says Crosbie, with grim understatement. "But that second flight was the longest two hours of my life!"
Two defeats in Cyprus, including one in 95 degree heat, were followed by a trip, via Beirut, to Tehran, where they took on an Iranian Air Force team containing seven internationals, losing 2-1. Draws with a Tehran Select XI and a Governors' XI in Shiraz followed. Kap, though, was preparing to shake up his squad. Crosbie remembers: "A new player called Graham Stirland had joined the tour in France. He was a winger, a fantastic player who was always getting back to help his fullback out.
"We arrived in Tehran for our next flight and Graham was asked to follow Frank Randorf, Bob Kap's assistant, to the toilets. Ten minutes later, Frank returned alone. When we asked where Graham was, we were told that Mr Kap did not think he was mixing with the other players and he was sent home to England. We were not even allowed to say goodbye and that was the last we saw of him."
From Tehran, the squad embarked upon a mammoth tour of the Iranian mountains, taking in games in Rasht and Shahi, as well as three seven-hour coach journeys. With the squad preparing to leave Iran for Pakistan, the Norwegian defender Tom Weinholdt returned home to undergo knee surgery, reducing Kap's numbers to just 16, of which two were goalkeepers.
Dallas would play a key role in the NASL until their dissolution in 1981. They were championship winners in 1971, and finished runners up two years later. The likes of Alex Stepney, Alan Hinton and the Liverpool duo Kevin Kewley and Brian Kettle would all represent the club at various points.
Their World Tour, however, is easily the greatest, most incredible tale in their history. As Crosbie, who hopes to organise a reunion for the players next year, says, we will never see its kind again.
Kap's legacy, meanwhile, remains. He is widely credited with changing the face of NFL by introducing "soccer-style" kickers to the game in the early 1970s. One of his recommendations, an Austrian named Toni Fritsch, was the first European-trained soccer player to play in the NFL, and Kap would directly introduce eight more in the next three years.
Ever the innovator, Kap would attract headlines in 1978 when fronting a "business syndicate" that attempted to acquire the Argentine World Cup star Ricky Villa. The bid, audacious in the extreme, failed. Villa, along with Ossie Ardiles, moved to Tottenham instead. In later years, Kap would become an accomplished painter. Some of his work, Gridiron-themed, can be found in the NFL Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio.
Kap died in his sleep in Ontario, Ottawa in March 2010, aged 87. His role in the Dallas Tornado World Tour, however, should ensure his place in football history is assured. You might not have heard of him until today, but nobody who went on that tour will ever forget Bob Kap.
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Oct. 17: Tehran, Iran Iranian Air Force team Lost 2-1 crowd 8,000 The Air Force team had 7 Internationals. Brian Harvey scored.
Oct. 18: Tehran Tehran Select 11 Tied 1-1 This team had 5 Internationals. Chris Tonning scored.
Oct. 20: Shiraz Governors 11 Tied 1-1
Oct. 22: Rasht Team? Lost 4-1 We had a 7 hour coach ride across the mountains to Rasht.
Oct. 23: We stayed at Bablasar on the Caspian sea.
Oct. 24: Shahi Team? Tied 2-2 Took a 7.5 hour coach ride to Shahi. Played the same afternoon. Shahi is 5,000 feet up in the mountains.
Oct. 26: Took a 7 hour coach ride back to Tehran. We stayed the night readying for a flight to Karachi, Pakistan.
Money, adulation and marketing are the key tenets of a well-planned, well-publicised pre-season visit. Sporting gains are usually far outweighed by financial ones.
What, then, would the Premier League bean counters have made of Dallas Tornado, and their extraordinary world tour of 1967-68? Playing 32 games, across five continents and 26 countries over a seven-month period, Dallas, in just about every sense, took on the world. From Spain in August to Honduras in March, via Christmas in Tokyo and New Year in Manila, this was genuine football globetrotting. And long before it was fashionable, too. No product-placement, milking the market or "expanding the brand" here.
Dallas' journey saw them cheat death, Final Destination style, at the hands of Greek-Cypriot terrorists, visit Vietnam whilst war raged around them, and survive an on-pitch riot in Singapore. The football, at times, must have felt like a sideshow. Some sideshow, mind. During the tour, Tornado played in front of crowds of up to 50,000, and against sides of the calibre of Real Oviedo, Fenerbahce and the Japanese national team.
"An amazing trip that will never be repeated again," is how Bill Crosbie, one of the players involved, describes the tour. Even that hardly seems to do it justice. This was a plot worthy of Hollywood.
Crosbie was a 19-year-old bus conductor when he answered an advert in the Liverpool Echo, looking for "top-class amateur footballers". Soon afterwards, he was asked to attend an interview at the city's Adelphi Hotel.
There, he found a man named Bob Kap. Serbian by birth, Kap – real name Božidar Kapušto – had studied alongside Ferenc Puskas at the Hungarian national football academy, but was forced to flee Europe during the 1956 uprising.
He moved to Toronto, Canada, where he worked briefly as a reporter for a local football magazine. His true passion, though, was always for coaching. So when Dallas, looking for someone to prepare a team for the inaugural North American Soccer League, came calling, he jumped at the chance. Kap used his contacts to recruit from across Europe. Eight of the touring side were English, and seven of those were Merseysiders. They were supplemented by five Norwegians, two Dutchmen, two Swedes and, improbably, just one American, Jay Moore.
Crosbie remembers his initial meeting with Kap well: "I was asked a lot of questions, about the amateur teams I had played for, how fast a runner I was, why I wanted to join his team, things like that."
Flanking the coach was Dave Moorcroft, a local amateur player of some pedigree. Moorcroft had played for Skelmersdale United at Wembley in the FA Amateur Cup final, and would go on to play more than 100 times for Tranmere Rovers. "He was there to vet the players," remembers Crosbie. "I remember leaving thinking that was the last I would hear on that."
He was wrong. A month later, a telegram arrived at his home, asking him to a second meeting, this time at the Regent Hotel. It was the message that would change his life. "He asked me how much notice I would have to give at work," says Crosbie. "I said two weeks, but in extreme circumstances one week. He told me if I wanted to join his team then I would have to fly to the South of France the following morning!"
Crosbie, who had he been on duty that night would have missed Kap's telegram, agreed, only to be told there was a further condition from his new manager. "Bob told me that the next time he saw me, I had better have had a haircut!" he remembers. "My hair was shoulder-length at the time, very much like The Beatles, but Bob wanted an All American look, crew cuts for everyone. It had to go."
Luckily, one of Crosbie's neighbours was a hairdresser, and so was summoned to an emergency 10pm appointment. Bill's brother was given a resignation letter to hand in to his bosses, and that was that. He was on the first train out of Lime Street the following morning. "We did not have a phone, so I could not even contact my girlfriend to say goodbye!" Crosbie laughs.
Together with another Scouser, Bobby Roach, Crosbie flew to Nice to join up with the side. Tornado had already played five games by that point, visiting both Spain and Morocco. The last was a 4-0 defeat to Real Oviedo, then playing in the Segunda Division. With Crosbie and Bobby Roach on board, and with the players instructed to wear club suits complete with Stetson hats wherever they went, Dallas travelled to Istanbul, drawing 2-2 with the Turkish champions Fenerbahce, having led 2-0 at one stage, in front of a crowd of 25,000. Crosbie missed the game with a virus, which doctors believed was caused by undergoing too many injections within a short space of time.
Their next game was to take place in Cyprus, though fate would rear its head before then.
After a day sightseeing at the Acropolis, the team were delayed heading to the airport and missed their flight from Athens to Nicosia by half an hour. Lucky them. Flight BEA CY284 exploded at 29,000ft after a bomb was detonated under a seat, killing 63 people. Its intended target, the Greek army general Georgios Grivas, had also missed the flight, and later travelled to Nicosia on the same plane as the Tornado team.
"Missing that plane was the best thing we ever did," says Crosbie, with grim understatement. "But that second flight was the longest two hours of my life!"
Two defeats in Cyprus, including one in 95 degree heat, were followed by a trip, via Beirut, to Tehran, where they took on an Iranian Air Force team containing seven internationals, losing 2-1. Draws with a Tehran Select XI and a Governors' XI in Shiraz followed. Kap, though, was preparing to shake up his squad. Crosbie remembers: "A new player called Graham Stirland had joined the tour in France. He was a winger, a fantastic player who was always getting back to help his fullback out.
"We arrived in Tehran for our next flight and Graham was asked to follow Frank Randorf, Bob Kap's assistant, to the toilets. Ten minutes later, Frank returned alone. When we asked where Graham was, we were told that Mr Kap did not think he was mixing with the other players and he was sent home to England. We were not even allowed to say goodbye and that was the last we saw of him."
From Tehran, the squad embarked upon a mammoth tour of the Iranian mountains, taking in games in Rasht and Shahi, as well as three seven-hour coach journeys. With the squad preparing to leave Iran for Pakistan, the Norwegian defender Tom Weinholdt returned home to undergo knee surgery, reducing Kap's numbers to just 16, of which two were goalkeepers.
Dallas would play a key role in the NASL until their dissolution in 1981. They were championship winners in 1971, and finished runners up two years later. The likes of Alex Stepney, Alan Hinton and the Liverpool duo Kevin Kewley and Brian Kettle would all represent the club at various points.
Their World Tour, however, is easily the greatest, most incredible tale in their history. As Crosbie, who hopes to organise a reunion for the players next year, says, we will never see its kind again.
Kap's legacy, meanwhile, remains. He is widely credited with changing the face of NFL by introducing "soccer-style" kickers to the game in the early 1970s. One of his recommendations, an Austrian named Toni Fritsch, was the first European-trained soccer player to play in the NFL, and Kap would directly introduce eight more in the next three years.
Ever the innovator, Kap would attract headlines in 1978 when fronting a "business syndicate" that attempted to acquire the Argentine World Cup star Ricky Villa. The bid, audacious in the extreme, failed. Villa, along with Ossie Ardiles, moved to Tottenham instead. In later years, Kap would become an accomplished painter. Some of his work, Gridiron-themed, can be found in the NFL Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio.
Kap died in his sleep in Ontario, Ottawa in March 2010, aged 87. His role in the Dallas Tornado World Tour, however, should ensure his place in football history is assured. You might not have heard of him until today, but nobody who went on that tour will ever forget Bob Kap.
==================================================================================================
Oct. 17: Tehran, Iran Iranian Air Force team Lost 2-1 crowd 8,000 The Air Force team had 7 Internationals. Brian Harvey scored.
Oct. 18: Tehran Tehran Select 11 Tied 1-1 This team had 5 Internationals. Chris Tonning scored.
Oct. 20: Shiraz Governors 11 Tied 1-1
Oct. 22: Rasht Team? Lost 4-1 We had a 7 hour coach ride across the mountains to Rasht.
Oct. 23: We stayed at Bablasar on the Caspian sea.
Oct. 24: Shahi Team? Tied 2-2 Took a 7.5 hour coach ride to Shahi. Played the same afternoon. Shahi is 5,000 feet up in the mountains.
Oct. 26: Took a 7 hour coach ride back to Tehran. We stayed the night readying for a flight to Karachi, Pakistan.
Likes:
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