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40th Reunion for Soccer City USA

By Paul Danzer, Columbian Soccer, hockey and Community Sports Reporter
Published: September 23, 2015, 10:45pm

PORTLAND — Four decades after he and a group of lads from England planted soccer seeds in downtown Portland, Peter Withe came away impressed after a tour of Providence Park, and suggested it would be fun to spend the afternoon banging a drum with the Timbers Army.

That the man who scored 17 goals during the summer of 1975 for the original Portland Timbers wanted to hang with supporters seemed appropriate.

“We created this bond between the team and the supporters,” Withe recalled. “It’s great to here that the team now are doing exactly the same, carrying on this tradition.”

In recognition of the 40th anniversary of the summer of 75, the Timbers invited alumni from all three chapters of Timbers history for a weekend reunion in conjunction with last Sunday’s match against the New York Red Bulls. Thirty-five players from NASL, USA/A-League, and MLS teams made the reunion.

This was Withe’s first trip to Portland since 1975. The memories came flooding back as he looked around the stadium. One of his favorite memories is of reporters at the Timbers first practice who didn’t know what to make of him using his head to knock the ball into the goal.

“For them to see this big center forward of 6-foot-2 actually head the football, they didn’t understand what it was,” Withe recalled.

Three months later, Withe headed home his 17th goal of the season to propel the Timbers into Soccer Bowl 75. In 1975, the Trail Blazers had never made the NBA playoffs, so Portland was thrilled to have a winner. With bleacher seats circling the field, crowds of more than 30,000 jammed Civic Stadium for playoff wins over Seattle and St. Louis. When fans flooded onto the field after each victory, the players were thrilled to share the joy.

“We weren’t fearful. We were elated for them because we’d been part of it with them.”

Withe scored the most goals that season, but the most memorable goal was delivered by Tony Betts to beat Seattle in overtime in the playoff quarterfinals.

Betts, one of a group of NASL-era Timbers who made Portland their home when their playing days ended, said he hadn’t seen the goal until a couple of years ago when his son found it on YouTube.

“It’s still exciting,” Betts said.

Willie Anderson, who delivered the cross that Betts scored from, also settled in Portland after a 20-year playing career.

“Anybody who played in that game, whether you played for Portland or Seattle, will never forget it because of the crowd,” Anderson said.

That team jelled quickly. It helped, Anderson said, that the players from England lived in the same apartment complex.

“After practice we’d all get together around the pool and get to know each other,” Anderson said. “On the road we were really a fun group.”

The team held meet-the-team parties after home matches as part of its grassroots efforts to introduce the city to soccer. Fans crowded into hotel ballrooms for the events.

“The after game parties were great. There were so many fans there,” Anderson said. “None of us had ever been through anything like that before. We got to meet them, they got to like us. It just grew from there.”

The NASL-era Timbers lasted eight seasons before the club (and soon the league) folded. But the legacy remained through the work of many former players who put down roots in the area.

Withe wasn’t among those. He returned to England where he spent a decade as a striker at four different clubs and was on England’s 1982 World Cup team.

The 1975 summer in Portland, Withe said, ranks among his favorite memories, “because it was a new franchise. It was coming to a city that had never seen soccer before in their lives.”

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Columbian Soccer, hockey and Community Sports Reporter