“I thought you might be interested in an article that ran recently in Seattle,” said ex-Dundee man Bobby.
“Former Dundee, Everton and Scotland player JIMMY GABRIEL is still going strong and involved with the Seattle Sounders.
“The Sounders have been in the USL for a good while.
“The USL is a level below MLS, although the two leagues are not connected.
“Now backed by some significant investors such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and comedian Drew Carey, Seattle won the right to join MLS in 2009.
“Jimmy Gabriel is a legend in the Seattle area, as you can see from the article, which had the heading ‘Gabriel is bridge between original NASL squad, future MLS side’.
I’ve kept the following in its entirety as I think it’s important that people know just how revered this “son of Dundee” is.
Over the past 35 years, there has been one constant in Seattle soccer. Whenever the sport is in need, Jimmy Gabriel will answer the call.
One of the original Sounders to take the field in the North American Soccer League in 1974, Gabriel has seen every twist and turn in the local soccer landscape.
He was there when the Sounders opened the Kingdome in front of 58,218 fans in 1976. He was there when they lost to the New York Cosmos in the 1977 Soccer Bowl for the NASL championship. He has remained active in the soccer community ever since, even coaching with the Sounders in 2004 and 2005. His legacy was important enough that when fans were allowed to vote for the name of the new MLS club, Seattle Sounders FC was the clear choice.
After some time away from the game in Montana, Gabriel is back in Seattle as an assistant coach for the Sounders during their final season in the USL First Division. And just around the corner is the return of big-time soccer in Seattle.
A long list of parallels connects the 1974 Sounders and the MLS franchise that will begin play in 2009.
Though they still are not close to putting a roster together, Sounders FC is looking internationally to find the building blocks of its club — just as the team did in 1974 when the NASL Sounders were seeking players to fill their expansion roster.
Gabriel was a free agent after playing 17 years in England and his native Scotland when John Best and Jack Dailey called, asking if he’d like to play for a new team in Seattle called the Sounders. He’d been stateside before and liked the U.S., so he agreed.
“I figured I’d give it a try, and if I didn’t like it, I could always go back,” Gabriel said.
A year later, when a Brazilian sensation named Pele joined the Cosmos as the swan song to his career, the league took off. But it was Gabriel and his team-mates on that inaugural club who laid the groundwork for the Brazilian sensation, preparing the American crowd for the brilliance they would see on the field.
When the Sounders opened the Kingdome on April 25, 1976, they again called on Gabriel. Trailing the Cosmos 2-0, Best, the coach, brought Gabriel off the bench. Not long after entering the game, he found the back of the net for the Sounders’ first goal in the new stadium, bringing an excitement to the massive crowd that not even Pele could match with his free-kick that put the game away at 3-1.
Though the game was listed as a friendly, Gabriel led a competitive charge, knocking Pele off the ball on a few occasions.
“Anybody would love to see Pele, but we weren’t going to lie down,” Gabriel said. “We wanted to show our fans that we had heart and guts.”
Though the Sounders were largely English, their goal was to get the American players to play up to the high standard that was set.
Starting at the youth level, kids started playing more and more and soon Americans were spotting the rosters of teams all over the world. Triggering some of that domestic growth was the image of Pele raising the NASL trophy in his final game in 1978.
Seattle’s MLS club won’t need to wait for the local players to catch up. With players from the U.S. peppering the rosters of top-flight clubs around the world, the MLS will be able to build and maintain a competitive level of play on a global scale, Gabriel said, even after world-renowned players such as David Beckham had played their final MLS games.
Because of the local youth clubs, some of which Gabriel started while a player/coach with the Sounders of the NASL and others in which he is still associated, the international and domestic players will complement each other much more than they had before.
“Players are going to Europe from all over the world. The way they are planning this team, they figure they can bring those same players to the U.S.,” Gabriel said.
Though it took some time to catch on, the imprint of Gabriel and the long list of players and coaches who brought big-time soccer to Seattle in the NASL will be remembered through the new team’s name.
“The fans wanted to call this team Seattle Sounders, and the way they did it was fantastic,” Gabriel said of the grass-roots write-in campaign that landed the MLS club on its name.
“It shows that we left an impression. (Former Sounders coach Alan Hinton) and I were especially proud that the fans wanted to keep the name.”
HARD TO BEAT
BREADALBANE AMATEURS, from Aberfeldy, would be hard to beat in our search for the oldest amateur side currently in existence.
That’s according to their former player N. MORRISON.
“Breadalbane are currently in the Perthshire AFA First Division and were formed in 1880 when teams from the East and West of Aberfeldy amalgamated.
“I doubt there are many amateur clubs from that era still about.
“Breadalbane played Pullar Rangers in the first organised football match in Perth in 1884.
“A year later, they drew 1-1 with a newly-formed SAINT JOHNSTONE, again in Perth.
“A search on the internet under Breadalbane football can give many more details of their interesting history.”
OLIVER HAD AN EYE FOR LOCAL FOOTBALL TALENT
There was sad news recently with the death of former senior football scout OLIVER HAMILTON.
He scouted for several clubs, but, most notably, Blackpool. However, it was in his brief spell with Luton Town that I came across him.
It was in the mid-1960s and I was playing for Butterburn Youth Club against Fintry Boys in an Angus Amateur FA U/16 cup final at North End Park.
We were comprehensively beaten that midweek evening by a very good Fintry outfit (Birkhill’s DEREK STEWART reminds me of this every time we meet), but the buzz in the dressing-room after the game was that senior clubs were signing some of the Fintry boys.
As I recall, it turned out that Oliver was offering terms to NORRIE PORTER and DEREK MELDRUM.
Detail so far back is not too great, but I seem to remember he was also keen on Alex Bruce and John Connolly, but they had already been snapped up by Preston North End and Liverpool respectively.
Oliver lived latterly in Forest Park Road, Dundee, and was formerly the licensee of the Scout Bar, Temple Lane, Dundee. For 21 years, until 1962, he was a full-time scout for Blackpool.
He lived in Monifieth for four years and was a member of the Town Council for a spell.
Our photo (below) shows Oliver snapping up another well-known local footballer — GEORGE MORRIS, then of St Patrick’s Youth Club — signing forms to join Blackpool.
When George returned to Dundee, he was a member of the successful Lochee United side under the Grier brothers in the 1980s.
