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The book details in an engaging manner the history of the professional soccer in Rochester from the beginning, the backroom theatrics as well as on the on-field drama. If you are a soccer fan in general or have a connection to Rochester in particular, I urge you to read this book.
--Shep Messing
Rochester Lancers, Class of 1979
This is a work of non-fiction. I repeat: This is a work of non-fiction.
The story of the Rochester Lancers is an amazing one; a tale about passion for the beautiful game, and how the team and owners survived the good, bad and ugly times during a 14-year existence.
This book tells their story, the birth, life and death of the club. It starts with their humble beginnings with the Italian American Sport Club, which captured the 1963 National Amateur Cup title, to their glory years - they saved the North American Soccer League from extinction in 1970, to some lean and disappointing seasons, to a late revival before the team went to the great soccer league in the sky.
The Lancers were operated by owners who didn’t necessarily want to get rich on the sport but wanted to see the game grow in their city and the United States as the Green Bay of soccer.
The team certainly lived in some interesting times, with many characters and players wearing various renditions of the blue and gold uniform.
There were historic Concacaf Champions League matches in Guatemala, an NASL championship celebration, colossal late collapses, winning despite multiple own goals by the same defender, winning a playoff match despite two penalty kick failures by the same striker, and winning another playoff game despite playing with two men down at an enemy venue.
With the Lancers, there was always plenty of hope, but perhaps not as much money as the owners and players had hoped. There was one common denominator. There seemed to be never a dull moment.
For example:
- A star player asking to be traded every season.
- A revolving door of coaches.
- A fierce and deadly ethnic rivalry spreading to Toronto and Rochester.
- A teenage scoring star almost saving a season.
- A marathon 176 minute playoff game for the ages seemingly lasting for ages.
- A harrowing plane ride from Washington, D.C. to Rochester, N.Y.
- Opposing teams arriving late at games.
- Goalkeepers commuting to games from their home cities.
- A team owner sitting on the bench during games.
- Another team owner sending notes to the coach from the press box to the bench on what substitutions should have been made.
- An owner coaching the team to a few wins.
- Another owner directing the team to its worst defeat.
- A coach who was suspended from the field for home games, guiding the squad from the roof of the press box.
- ·Not one, but two players, throwing their shirts at their coach after being replaced.
- The Lancers playing in an antiquated venue, Holleder Stadium, which former New York Cosmos and German legend Franz Beckenbauer called “a nice place to grow potatoes.”
- Home supporters invading the field and attacking the team during a match.
This volume includes every game the Lancers played. For many Rochester soccer fans, it will be heaven. For outsiders, it might be a bit too much, and perhaps a drudgery, because many matches are detailed. But those facts put what transpired between games into proper context and perspective.
During the formative years of modern professional soccer in this country, not every team in the North American Soccer League or the American Soccer League basked in the glamour of the world-renowned Cosmos as many clubs struggled, yet found ways to play another day. The Lancers managed to be one of them.
Only one question: Are you in?
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