North American Soccer League Ros

Dallas Tornado 1967-68 World Tour

After the 1967 season, the USA and NPSL leagues merged into the NASL. The Dallas Tornado sent coach Bob Kap to northern Europe to put together a team of young "All American" looking players. Before the NASL season started this new Dallas Tornado team was sent on an amazing six month tour of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Central America.

This is the story of that trip. A team of 18 young, unknown players who had never been to Dallas went into some of the world's most difficult locations as the "Dallas Tornado" soccer team. This included games in Saigon in the middle of the Vietnam War. Imagine taking a trip to Baghdad to play a game today. It was an amazing trip that will never be repeated again.

Most of the content has been provided by Bill Crosbie who was an 19 year old with a dream to play professional soccer. This is not meant to be his story. Hopefully someday, a better writer than me will collect the other stories and publish a book. For now, it will be primarily his memories of the trip.

The beginning of the tour started with training camp in Spain. The first games were played in Spain and in Morocco.

Date	Location	Opponent	Score	Notes
Aug. 22	Cordoba, Spain	Cordoba CF	Lost 0-4
Aug. 29	Madrid, Spain	RSD Alcala	Won 5-4
Sept. 8	Seville, Spain	Coria CF	Won 4-3
Sept. 15	Tangier, Morocco	UDT	Won 3-2
Sept. 20	Oviedo, Spain	Real Oviedo	Lost 0-4

Sept.30: Nice, France Bill Crosbie and Bobby Roach join the team.

"I do not know who`s idea the tour was, if it was Lamar Hunt's or Bob Kap's. The idea was to have a very young "All American" style look about us. To this end, we all had to have very short hair and even had to travel the world with Stetsons, jackets, and ties.

I had already been interviewed for the Dallas Club two months earlier and put on the back burner. I got a telegram that said, If I was still interested to meet Mr. Kap in a Liverpool hotel that night. I jumped at the chance and went to the hotel. He said he still wanted to sign me for the club . He then said Bobby Roach and I would have to catch a train the following morning at 8 am from Liverpool to London. We would then find our way to Heathrow to catch a flight to Nice South of France . There we would meet up with the rest of the squad.

Being the sixties, it was all about " The Beatles" and shoulder length hair.   I was one of those people. "By the way," said Mr Kap, "If you want to join this football club get a short, back and sides before I see you again."   I got home about 10 that night on the bus. I went across the road to a girl I knew was a hairdresser. I got a hair cut, packed a suitcase and wrote a resignation letter to the firm I worked for. Then I got to bed . I was up at six. I said goodbye to my parents . And I got the bus to Lime Street Station in Liverpool for the train.   We did not have a phone, so I could not even contact my girlfriend to say goodbye!

Here is where fate comes in.  I was a Bus conductor which meant at any one time I could be out on the road with no way of being contacted. We didn`t have cell phones then. If I had been on a late shift or late afternoon shift I would have missed the telegram and not gone on the world tour." Bill Crosbie

Oct. 6: Istanbul, Turkey Fenerbache Drew 2-2 Crowd 25,000

Oct. 12: Athens, Greece Transit and sightseeing. "The team was scheduled to take a flight from Athens to Nicosia, Cyprus. Because we had been sightseeing too long at the Acropolis, we missed our plane by half an hour. It was the best thing the we ever did. The plane we should have been on was blown up in mid air by a bomb. It was a flight from Athens to Nicosia Cyprus. 63 people died on that planed. They were after the Greek Cypriot leader General George Grivas. He was booked on that flight with us. He also missed the flight and caught the very same flight we were on." Bill Crosbie

Note: Here is a link to an article about the bombing. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0283.shtml

Bill Crosbie at the Acropolis

Dallas Tornado Team touring the Acropolis

Oct. 13: Cyprus Limmasol Lost 2-4 Crowd 6,000

Oct. 14: Cyprus Nicosia Lost 0-2 95 degrees

Oct. 16: Beirut, Lebanon transit

Oct. 17: Tehran, Iran Iranian Air Force team 1-2 crowd 8,000 The Air Force team had 7 Internationals

Dallas Tornado in Tehran, Iran

Oct. 18: Tehran Tehran Select 11 Drew 1-1 This team had 5 Internationals

Oct. 20: Shiraz Governors 11 Drew 1-1

Oct. 21: Tehran "We flew back from Shiraz to Tehran. We got a shock at the airport. A new player called Graham Stirland had joined the tour in the south of France. He was a winger. A fantastic player who beside being good going forward was always getting back to help his fullback out. All the players loved him as a player. Here is the injustice. The manager Bob Kap did not think he was mixing with the rest of the squad and kept himself to himself. We arrived in for our next flight and Graham was asked to follow Frank Randorf (an assistant to Bob Kap) to the gents toilets. Ten minutes later, Frank arrived alone. We asked where Graham was. We were told that Mr. Kap did not think he was mixing with the other players and he was sent home to England. We were not even allowed to say goodbye and that was the last we saw of him." Bill Crosbie

Oct. 22: Rasht Team? Lost 0-1 We had a 7 hour coach ride across the mountains to Rasht.

Oct. 23: We stayed at Bablasar on the Caspian sea.

Oct. 24: Shahi Team? Drew 2-2 Took a 7.5 hour coach ride to Shahi. Played the same afternoon. Shahi is 5,000 feet up in the mountains.

Oct. 26: Took a 7 hour coach ride back to Tehran. We stayed the night readying for a flight to Karachi, Pakistan.

Oct. 27: Karachi, Pakistan Before we leave Tehran, Norwegian player Tom Weinholdt goes home to have knee surgery. The team is now down to 16 players.

Oct. 28: Karachi Pakistan National Team Won 2-0 Crowd of 35,000

67-10-28 Dallas Tornado Karachi Pakistan

Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan

Oct. 29: Lahore, Pakistan Pakistan National Team (11 new players) Lost 2-4 Crowd of 25,000

Oct. 31: Dacca, East Pakistan Pakistan U23 team Drew 1-1 Crowd 25,000 This is now Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Nov. 1: Chittagong, East Pakistan Team? Drew 0-0 Don't know the temperature, but it was very hot.

"We were up at 4 am for the flight to Chittagong. We played in the afternoon. And then another 2 hour flight back to Dacca." Bill Crosbie

Nov. 3: "We took a 4 hour ride on a rickety old bus to the border of India. We get to the border. We have to take our suitcases off that bus walk 400 yards to the border. There were local rioters screaming and hurling abuse because the country we were walking to was India. We go through passport control and walk 400 yards with suitcases to our next bus where the people were laying garlands at our feet!

To make matters worse, when we got through those thousands of screaming agitators in East Pakistan, the only people allowed to cross the border into India were British or Commonwealth Nationals. All the English got through as well as Bob Kap who was a naturalized Canadian. The Scandinavians, Dutch and Americans had to stay for two days in a rundown, no star hotel. They told us the only thing they had to eat in those two days was a small chicken." Bill Crosbie

Nov. 3: Calcutta, India

Tornado and Presidents 11 New Delhi, India	Mahatma Gandhi Tomb Notice the team is wearing jackets and ties. The temperature was 95 degrees.	Mahatma Gandhi Tomb

Date	Location	Opponent	Score	Notes
Nov. 5	Calcutta, India	Indian National Team	Draw 0-0	Crowd 30,000
Nov. 7	New Delhi, India	President's 11	Lost 0-1	Crowd 35,000, 95 degrees
Nov. 8	New Delhi, India			Sightseeing at Mahatma Gandhi tomb
Nov. 9	Bombay, India	President's 11	Lost 0-1	Crowd 25,000, 105 degrees
Nov. 15	Bangalore, India	Governor's 11	Draw 1-1	Crowd 30,000
Nov. 17	Hydrabad, India	Governor's 11	Draw 2-2	Crowd 23,00 Different Governor's 11 team
Nov. 19	Madras, India	Indian National Team	Won 4-1	Crowd 30,000

67-11 Tornado Tour India internal_flight_in_India

Tornado in Madras

Program from game in Ceylon

Nov. 20: Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Nov. 22: Colombo, Ceylon Ceylon National Team Lost 1-2

Nov. 24: Colombo, Ceylon Ceylon National Team Lost 0-3

Nov. 25: "On this day, we should have flown from Ceylon to Burma via Madras and Calcutta. When we got to Calcutta there were political riots going on and all flights were cancelled. We had to hide in our hotel for two days and left on the 28th at 4:00 AM to sneak out of India." Bill Crosbie

Nov. 28: Rangoon, Burma Burma U21 Team Lost 0-4 Crowd 45,000 "This was a fantastic team." Bill Crosbie

Nov. 30: Rangoon, Burma Burma National Team Lost 1-3 Crowd 47,000 Played in front of 92,000 people within 48 hours!

Rangoon, Burma

Tornado 68 Tour Singapore Liverpool writeup

Liverpool paper's write up of game in Singapore.

Dec 2: Singapore

Dec 3: Singapore Singapore Lost 2-4
"On the way to the stadium, there were Chinese militants chanting slogans like "Go Home Yanks" and "Yankee Imperialists." In the stadium things were not much better even the team we played were taking chunks out of us. When one of our players, Per Larsen fouled one of theirs, they started throwing stones and other things onto the pitch. He then incensed them by bowing. We had to be escorted from the pitch and had to stay in the dressing room for 2 hours after the game while the mob outside left!" Bill Crosbie

Dec. 4: "The game against a different Singapore was cancelled for safety (ours !) reasons." Bill Crosbie

Dec. 6: Djakarta, Indonesia

Dec 8: Djakarta, Indonesia Indonesian National Team Lost 0-2 Crowd 22,000

Dec 10: Djakarta, Indonesia Indonesian National Team Lost 1-6 Crowd 20,000

Bill Crosbie in Djakarta, Indonesia

Dallas Tornado vs. Indonesian National Team
Bobby Roach, John Stewart, Petter Enger
Thanks http://naslmemories.blogspot.com/

67-12-12 Dallas Tornado Saigon Vietnam program

Program from game in Saigon

Dec 12: Saigon, Vietnam

Dec 14: Saigon, Vietnam Vietnam U23 Team Drew 1-1 Crowd 15,000

Dec 16: Saigon, Vietnam Club Saigon Drew 2-2 Crowd 20,000

"As an American, my life has been highly influenced by the Vietnam War. It was on the news morning and night. Every teenage boy feared being drafted and sent to Vietnam. There were riots in the streets protesting the war. American soldiers shot and killed American citizens for protesting the war. Everyone had a brother, cousin or neighbor who had been sent to Vietnam. There wasn't a day that you didn't discuss the war.

For this reason, the Vietnam portion of the Tornado tour amazes me the most. They didn't just got to a war zone to play soccer. They went at a critical time in the history of the war. The turning point in the war was the Tet offensive which started just 45 days after the Tornado played their last game in Saigon. During the Tet offensive the North Vietnamese attacked the Presidential Palace in the heart of Saigon. The City of Hue was leveled in the fighting. For Bill and the team, it appears to have been just another stop on the trip." Dave Morrison

Read more about the Tet Offensive: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1862.html

"Vietnam was a surprise to us when we learnt we were going there. Whilst there, we were well protected with a police escort from the airport to hotel, etc. Though we were allowed to walk around Saigon on our own as sightseers!

The one interesting story I have was I was standing with Eddie Hall on the corner of a street in Saigon one afternoon taking in the views when this jeep screams up to us with some M.P.s in. They obviously thought we were G.I. s and asked us: "What the effin hell are you two doing standing there." When we gave an answer they realized we were English and told us not to stand still anywhere for more than two seconds. On enquiring why, they said there was a female as a passenger on a scooter who goes round looking for "Americans." As the scooter drives by at 20 mph, she times it with a hand grenade at your feet so by the time you realize she is 50 yards away and you are in heaven! We never went shopping again!" Bill Crosbie

Bill Crosbie in Saigon	Eddie Hall and Bill Crosbie in Saigon	US Soldier in Saigon
US Navy docked in Saigon	American GIs on Mekong River	Bill Crosbie on the Mekong River

Dec. 17: Hong Kong In transit overnight

Dec. 18: Taipei, Taiwan

Dec. 20: Taipei, Taiwan Taiwan National Team Won 3-2 Crowd 43,000

Tornado in Taipei, Taiwan

Tornado 67 Exhibition team in Taipei Taiwan

7
Tornado in Taipei, Taiwan

Dec. 21: Tokyo, Japan

Dec. 24: Tokyo, Japan Japan National Team Lost 1-2 Crowd 30,000 Game played at Olympic Stadium. The Japanese National team played in the Olympics in 1968.

Dec. 25: Christmas Day in Tokyo "Not much to tell. We decided to pull names out of a hat on the 23rd and that was the person you gave a Xmas gift to. The club had bought each player a Portable Panasonic radio (new tech in those days)

Also while in Tokyo, they have a strange custom. On Xmas eve after our game that day, we were in the hotel bar when I glanced over and caught the eye of a beautiful Japanese girl at the other end of the bar. We swapped notes and arranged to meet up in the hotel lobby in about an hour to go for a meal. I went to my room, showered changed, etc and went down to meet her. 5 minutes later she arrived so she must have lived local. Only problem was she had another girl with her. I greeted her and she me in her broken English. I said wait there and I raced upstairs and told my roommate to tell him he had a date. We then went down stairs. When we got there she laughed and said "No, you wait here." They both left and came back 20 minutes later with a 3rd girl! I asked what was going on and was told that if a girl was going out with a man for the 1st time she must have a chaperone. (extra girl)

So 3 girls and two guys went to a sushi bar where we had raw fish. Yuk! Gave mine to the girls who lapped it up and sake. Near fell through the floor when me and my mate got the bill!

Just as an aside; On the tour, Mr. Kap insisted that we swap roommates on a regular basis so we could mix more. One reason why I can`t remember who split the bill with me that night." Bill Cosbie

Dec. 26: Osaka, Japan Japan National Team Lost 2-3 Crowd 25,000

Olympic Stadium in Tokyo

Manila, Philippines

Dec. 30: Manila, Philippines

Dec. 31: Manila, Philippines New Year's Eve

Jan 1: Manila, Philippines Manila Chinese Select 11 Won 7-0 Crowd 10,000

Jan 6: Manila, Philippines Philippines National Team Lost 1-2

Jan. 7: Brisbane, Australia Arrive after traveling for 18 hours!

68-01-07-20 Tornado Tour Australia bobby_mike_john_jay_moore_australia

Relaxing in Australia

Program from game in Auckland, New Zealand

Date	Location	Opponent	Score	Notes
Jan. 9	Brisbane, Australia	Queensland State	Lost 0-1	Crowd 5,000
Jan. 13	Newcastle, Australia	Newcastle		Game was called off because the pitch was waterlogged.
Jan. 17	Adelaide, Australia	South Australia	Won 3-2	Crowd 4,000
Jan. 19	Sydney, Australia	Newcastle SW	Lost 1-2
Jan. 23	Christchurch, New Zealand	Governor's 11	Draw 2-2
Jan. 27	Auckland, New Zealand	Auckland	Lost 2-3
Jan. 31	Suva, Fiji	Fiji National Team	Won 10-2	Crowd 3,000 Played 60 minute game because of 100 degree heat.
Feb. 4	Nandi, Fiji	Fiji National Team	Won 3-1	Played 60 minute game because of 102 degree heat.
Feb. 11	Papeete, Tahiti	Tahiti National Team	Lost 1-2

Feb. 15: "Left Tahiti to go to Dallas via Acapulco, Mexico City and San Antonio, Texas. When we arrived in Dallas, we had 2 weeks or so to set up our lives. We had to find our apartments, buy pots, pans, dishes, food, and get phone lines. After that the team sent us on another mini-tour to Central America." Bill Crosbie

Mar. 5: Costa Rica

Mar. 6: Saprissa Lost 1-3

Mar. 8: Saprissa Drew 3-3

Mar. 12: Honduras Olympia Lost 1-2

"By this time all of the players were completely exhausted both mentally and physically. Not the best way to prepare for the upcoming 1st season." Bill Crosbie

Bill's comment is borne out by the 1968 NASL results. The Tornado had only 2 wins and 4 ties to go with 26 losses. This turned out to be the lowest winning percentage in the history of the league. The Tornado were outscored by an almost 4-1 ratio.

1968 Tornado home attendance was miserable. They only drew at total of 46,832 for the entire 16 game home season. Compare this to the 92,000 they drew in Burma in just 2 days.

"It was a tough season: I went to check the fixture list for that season and there were 32 league games in total. My season ended after six games which was the away game against St Louis when I snapped the ligaments in my ankle. The American pitches were difficult. Many times, we played on baseball fields. That was the case in St. Louis. I was on the shale part of the infield and turned to run back. My ligaments just snapped. So unfortunately (or fortunately!) I missed the rest of that dreadful season.

I enjoyed my time in the United States and would have stayed. However, it was during the Vietnam War. My work Visa allowed me to play soccer. Foreign Nationals who were not using their work visas could be drafted in to the US Army. The Tornado offered to help me get work. However, I would not have access to their lawyers. If I stayed I would risk being drafted while I got new work papers. The risk was too great, so I went back to England." Bill Cosbie

Tour Players	Citizen	Team picture taken in Dallas at the beginning of the 1968 NASL season
Chris Bachofner	Holland
Jan Book	Sweden
Bill Crosbie	England
Hans Petter Enger	Norway
Eddie Hall	England
Bryan Harvey	England
Per Larsen	Norway
Odd Lindberg	Norway
Dave Moorcraft	England
Jay Moore	USA
Mike Renshaw	England
Bobby Roach	England
John Stewart	England
Fons Stoffels	Holland
Graham Stirland	England
Chris Tonning	Sweden
Tom Weinholdt	Norway
Niels Overweg	Holland
Dutch Player	Holland

Bob Kap Coach

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