The many failed attempts to establish a football club in San Francisco have not put off one ambitious group, who want technology to give them an edge.
Few regions of the world contain as many top-level sports teams as the San Francisco Bay Area. The Golden State Warriors basketball team, based a bridge away from San Francisco in Oakland, won the NBA title in 2015, and were runners-up last year. The San Francisco Giants (baseball) were World Series winners in 2012 and 2014. And while the 49ers (American football) are not doing so well at the moment, their stunning new stadium hosted the Super Bowl in 2016.
Yet soccer has never truly succeeded here – despite an amateur league pyramid which, founded in 1902, predates even the US Soccer Federation. Professionally, the region has seen teams come and go rapidly. The Golden Gate Gales were set up in 1967 with Ferenc Puskas lined up as manager – only for the team to be dissolved the same year when two competing leagues merged into one, and the Gales were pushed out of the new format in favour of the Oakland Clippers (who disappeared a few years later). Another club, the Milan Mandaric-owned Oakland Stompers, lasted just one season in 1978 before moving to Edmonton, Canada.
This story is from the May 2017 edition of When Saturday Comes.
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This story is from the May 2017 edition of When Saturday Comes.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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