Pittsburgh Phantoms (NPSL)

The Pittsburgh Phantoms were a professional soccer team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1967. The club was a member of the non-FIFA sanctioned National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). All of the team's home games were played at Forbes Field, which also served as the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This article is about the soccer team. For the hockey team, see Pittsburgh Phantoms (RHI). For the basketball team, see Pittsburgh Phantoms (ABA).
Pittsburgh Phantoms
Full namePittsburgh Phantoms
Founded1967
Dissolved1967
GroundForbes Field,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Capacity35,714
ChairmanPeter Block & Richard George
ManagerPepi Gruber
LeagueNational Professional Soccer League (NPSL)

Prior to the 1967 season, on November 10, 1966 the Bavarian Herbert Vogt, formerly of Ingolstadt, was introduced as the team's head coach and general manager. At his first press conference, he gave the first public announcement that the team would be named the "Pittsburgh Phantoms". The colors of the team's uniforms were purple and white. However two months later, Vogt returned to Germany and resigned from his position with the team.

János Bédl then became the Phantom's second coach and was given a three-year $65,000 contract. However Bédl was fired after just four games. He later sued the team, settling out of court for $32,500. He then joined the Chicago Spurs as their head coach for the remainder of the 1967 season. Co Prins then became the head coach for a handful of games before being replaced by Josef "Pepi" Gruber in June.[1]

In addition to the multiple coaching changes, the Phantoms settled out of court with Sparta Rotterdam, a Dutch professional soccer club based in Rotterdam, for $50,000 when the team signed Theo Laseroms to a contract, while he was still under contract with Sparta.[2]

Following the 1967 season, the NPSL merged with the United Soccer Association to form the North American Soccer League. The Phantoms folded before the 1968 NASL season due to poor attendance, drawing only an average of 3,122 – only the Chicago Spurs had a lower average.

Year-by-year
Year Division W L T Pts League Playoffs
1967 NPSL 10 14 7 132 5th, Eastern Division Did not qualify
gollark: I've only got tar, (un)zip, unrar and zstandard and gzip, it's fine.
gollark: I mostly just use the appropriate tools for whatever archive format I am using, although their CLIs are ridiculous and inconsistent.
gollark: The osmarks.net site compiler literally contains a better dependency resolver.
gollark: LyricLy is an adverb.
gollark: Macron implementations.

References
  1. Phantoms missing 'Go'
  2. The 'Phantastic' Season


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.