Public domain image courtesy of Ian Plenderleith
It has been 50 years since the Kicks made their Minnesota debut, but the team continues to have a nostalgic grip on those who saw them play—and even those who didn’t but who took part in the tailgating scene that animated the Met Stadium parking lot.
At a time when soccer was a foreign curiosity, SuperValu CEO Jack Crocker led a group of grocers who purchased a failing Denver franchise in the North American Soccer League, rebranded it the “Kicks” (thanks to a name-the-team contest), and installed the team at the Met, home of the Vikings and Twins. The owners figured 6,000 fans might show up for the first game on Mother’s Day in 1976. But half an hour after the scheduled start time, they were still trying to get almost 20,000 fans through the turnstiles. Eventually, Crocker simply opened the gates and allowed the final 3,000 fans in for free so officials could start the game.
Minnesotans embraced the novelty. Soccer at the time was so un-American, it was exotic. The team imported players from England, Italy, and South Africa; Willey, Lettieri, and Ntsoelengoe became household names. For six years, from 1976 to 1981, the Kicks averaged 24,381 fans per game, far more than could be accommodated at the 19,000-capacity Allianz Field, home of their successors, the Loons. “That first game was the start of something very special,” says Alan Merrick, the Kicks’ captain. “Each game, more fans kept coming. It was just crazy to see the amount of people eating up soccer. They started a new life with the Kicks, as it were.”
That was true for newlyweds Mary and Charlie Kupper. They attended the season opener the following year, on May 8, 1977, the day after they got married. Someone had given them tickets as a wedding present. “I changed out of my wedding dress and into an orange Kicks T-shirt,” Mary says.
It was love at first sight. The then-23-year-olds from Edina had been to other sporting events at the Met, but this was fun on a whole new level. “It was a totally different experience than a Twins or Vikings game,” Charlie says. “It was all young people. They were loud and pretty wild.” The Kuppers became season ticket holders and made lifelong friends among the fans in their section.
The fun began with the pregame outside. With no charge for parking, favorable summer weather, and a statewide drinking age of only 18 (19 starting September 1976), young fans turned the vast expanse of asphalt into an atmosphere that one writer compared to a Grateful Dead concert. They elevated tailgating to a whole new level. Sure, Vikings fans pre-partied in the parking lot, but that usually involved a snowmobile suit and a flask; at Kicks games, you could kick back in flip-flops with a six-pack or doobies that were passed freely.
Public domain image courtesy of Ian Plenderleith
The party atmosphere carried over into the stadium. Unlike the orchestrated drumming and chanting at Loons matches, the cheering by spirited fans at Kicks games was outright raucous. The players appreciated their enthusiastic support, saluting them from the sidelines at the final whistle and crediting them with the team’s success, which included division titles their first four years. “We were a good team made so much better by the participation of the fans,” Merrick says.
The players quickly bonded with the “Sidekicks,” as their fan club was known. They gave autographs, made public appearances, and even joined fans in the parking lot for post-game parties. “The [Vikings and Twins] didn’t do that,” Merrick says. “We came to look forward to it.”
The Kicks had legit talent. They won the division title the first four years and two-thirds of all their games over six seasons. Though the team left behind a winning legacy, what fans remember most are the good times. “Neither the players nor the ownership secured the Kicks’ place in NASL soccer mythology,” writes soccer historian Ian Plenderleith. “It was the crowds, and what they did in and around the stadium before and after games.”
And then, poof, the good times—like youth itself—passed. Cocker sold the team to a group of British businessmen in 1980, and a year later, through a series of poor financial decisions, the new owners had run the team into bankruptcy. To be fair, none of the NASL’s 24 teams had turned a profit. But once the Kicks—the most popular team in the league—collapsed, the league soon followed. By 1984, it had all been relegated to history and memory.
