Back To The Future
Ricky Hill playing for the Rowdies in 1992. Thanks to Ian Morris' excellent Rowdies' blog.
FC Tampa Bay Rowdies are looking like contenders. For the 1993 APSL title, that is.
FCTB announced today that Ricky Hill will succeed Paul Dalglish as the club’s manager. I look forward to their matches against the Colorado Foxes and Los Angeles Salsa.
Seriously, whuck? I know Gordon Jago is 78, but Eddie Firmani is only 77, was he not interested?
Perhaps having been thwarted in their quest to call themselves the Rowdies, they just want to recapture those halcyon days of what was once the A-League by bringing back everybody and everything else from the past (if you talk to Terry Rowe, tell him I said hi).
At least Hill has coached before, which was more than could be said about Dalglish – Luton Town FC says Hill “took (the Rowdies) to two national championships and was Coach of the Year,” which is about half-right if you squint. Hill says his goal is a team that will “make the city of Tampa Bay proud.” Which is a neat trick if you can do it, seeing as how there is no city of Tampa Bay. There’s a city of Tampa. There’s a body of water called Tampa Bay. It’s between Tampa and St. Petersburg, which is where the not-Rowdies are considering playing their games this season.
Oy. I guess I should be happy they’re not owned by Traffic. Yet.
EDIT: The team announced Wednesday morning they will play the next two seasons in St. Petersburg. Well, that’s it for them, then.
Tags: me kvetching, NASL, Rowdies, soccer
January 20th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Stick too contrails and UFO stories…FCTB will be HUGE in St.Pete
January 21st, 2011 at 5:57 am
We’ll see. I hope I’m wrong. I want to see them do well. Last time I was at Al Lang was to cover Deion Sanders playing in the Florida State League. Probably 1988 or so.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Kenn;
What will the site lines be like? Judging from the aerial view from the link in the story, the fans will miss half of the action.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Well, it’s a baseball stadium. Most baseball stadiums have the seats slightly angled towards home plate. Seems like the bulk of seats in this configuration are behind the goal or behind that one corner flag, with no seats past about 25 yards from goal (just an approximation).
There appears to be a berm or something near midfield (which would be out in rightish field in baseball configuration) which could be fun, but midfield seating should be better than blankets on grass, wouldn’t you think?
If they’re going to be the primary tenant and they’re committing to this for the next two years, you’d think they would want to invest in some seating in other places. Putting some along the touchline on the opposite side would be good, but it would be temporary and you’d have to have people basically traipse into what was the outfield to get to and from those stands.
We’ll see what they eventually decide to do. Right now the NASL appears to have bigger issues.
January 25th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
It appears that, as an older baseball stadium, the seats are not as badly skewed as they were at Steinbrenner. It is more PGE Park than nuevo-Spring Training facility. That being said, PGE Park worked for soccer because all of the seats on the first-base line are aimed directly forward – and looking at the Yahoo! Map, Lang may not even have true midfield seating.
January 25th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Unless it’s that berm (which isn’t good enough for the type of seats you want at midfield) or they’re going to put some temporary seating in, you’re right. And that’s not good.
In the 21st century, you simply can’t expect people to pay for tickets that don’t come with the creature comforts that have become standard from small college to minor league baseball all the way to the NFL. You just can’t.
I’ve been ripped for saying it, but between the location, the lack of a track record of the front office in selling the product and building a team and the simple age of the facility, I cannot see how this can possibly be a net positive.
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:35 pm
I saw a Portland – Puerto Rico soccer game a couple years back at Hiram Bithorn baseball stadium, and it was great atmosphere and all. Of course, the fans were all along one side with the other one facing the outfield wall. The strolling fan band kept getting chased away by ushers. Noisy, fun ambiance! I hope Al Lang works out. It’s much closer to us (and thus convenient) than Steinbrenner was.