Carolina Lightnin'

The Carolina Lightnin' was a professional American soccer club based in Charlotte, North Carolina that was a member of the American Soccer League from 1981 to 83. After the Lightnin' folded, much of the front office staff and some of the players joined a new club called the Charlotte Gold that played in the United Soccer League in 1984. Both the Lightnin' and the Gold played home matches at American Legion Memorial Stadium.

History

In 1978, a group of local soccer enthusiasts in Charlotte formed a group called Charlotte Soccer '79 to promote the professional game in the region. Charlotte Soccer '79 hosted the first professional game ever played in the Carolinas when the North American Soccer League's Minnesota Kicks and Atlanta Chiefs met in an exhibition game at American Legion Stadium on March 24, 1979. Following the game, NASL commissioner Phil Woosnam indicated that the best path to getting an NASL team in Charlotte would be through relocation rather than expansion. Meanwhile, the de facto second division American Soccer League was eager to establish clubs in the American southern states and was ready to act quickly while asking for significantly less in expansion fees. So when an investment group headed by local businessman Bob Benson called Carolina Professional Soccer decided to pursue a franchise, they chose to apply for membership in the ASL. Their proposal was approved in December 1979, and they planned to join the league for its 1981 season.

Unlike many of the expansion teams of the period in both the ASL and NASL, Benson's group gave themselves a long time to assemble a strong front office, line up sponsors, publicize the existence of their new club, and encourage the growth of soccer in the region before opening the gates for their first match. In 1980 the group put on several youth camps and clinics, and they hosted two exhibition matches in the stadium that the new team would call home (one between two ASL teams and the other matching the ASL all-stars against an Israeli first division club). The team also made connections with several prominent local businesses and local print and television media, who were generous with their coverage. In September, the team announced that its first head coach would be Rodney Marsh, an English Premier League veteran who had played for the NASL's Tampa Bay Rowdies from 1976-1979. Marsh had a big personality and was fairly well known, enjoying enough popularity that he starred in a Miller Lite commercial in 1980. The team nickname, Lightnin', was picked from among thousands of entries in a "name the team" contest posted in the Charlotte Observer newspaper and was announced shortly after Marsh's hire.

The Lightnin' Years (1981-83)

The Carolina Lightnin' were one of four expansion teams joining the ASL for its 1981 season. Though the league had a history dating back to 1933, it was in the midst of an unstable period as it entered the 1980s. In the 1970s the league had tried to take advantage of rising interest in the sport to expand from its traditional base in the northeast into the midwest and the west coast, but member clubs were not able to keep up with the travel costs of a coast-to-coast league. It was in a constant state of flux, with most clubs lasting only a few seasons before folding. After 1980, five teams, including the last three west coast teams, ended operations. So even with four new clubs coming in, the league once again featured a total of just eight teams (one team was coming back in 1981 after sitting out in 1980 but not folding). The Lightnin' managed to take advantage of the changing landscape by scooping up the league's leading scorer in 1980, Mal Roche, and all-star Don Tobin when the teams they had played for shut down. They also convinced the league-leading goalkeeper Scott Manning to come south from the Pennsylvania Stoners. Rodney Marsh was assembling a strong and experienced roster; however, the flashiest and most surprising member of the 1981 team had never played professional soccer before and was, in fact, turned away when the team held open tryouts.

Tony Suarez had played his high school soccer in Charlotte before playing a few years of college soccer at two different schools. But by 1981 he was 25 and was back in Charlotte playing at the amateur level. Marsh did not select Tony from the pool of players at the open tryout, but Suarez offered to help in any way he could and persuaded the coach to let him train with the team as a "practice squad" member while also accepting a job as the team's bus driver. Suarez's persistence paid off when injuries to several Carolina players gave him the chance to suit up for their second game. He immediately made good on the opportunity, scoring nine goals in the first twelve games in which he played. The speedy young forward was a hit with fans, who loved that he was a local. Suarez would end the season with fifteen goals scored in just twenty-two games, he was one of two Lightnin' players named to the ASL All-Star team (along with Don Tobin), he was named MVP of the All-Star Game, and he also took home Rookie of the Year honors.

Watching Tony Suarez outrun opposing defenders would turn out to be only one of several things Carolina fans would love about coming to Lightnin' games. The publicity and community connections laid down in the sixteen months between the team's founding and its first kickoff were paying off at the box office. The team's philosophy was that they were in the family entertainment business first. The majority of American soccer fans, they reasoned, did not know much about the nuances of the game yet; but, if they had a great time, they would become repeat customers who would eventually learn more about the on-field product. As part of creating an overall entertainment experience, they put on an array of flashy promotional events and giveaways. The team ran contests to let fans try to win cars, hosted a "burn your mortgage" night, put on a post-game Beach Boys concert and even gave fans a chance to win a small airplane. The season's average attendance of 6,123 set a league record.

The Lightnin' were also quite successful on the field in their debut season. They finished with a regular season record of 16–3–9, which was best in their conference and second best in the league. In the playoffs, they defeated the Rochester Flash and then the Pennsylvania Stoners to earn a place in the championship game against New York United on September 18. New York's record was better than Carolina's, which should have earned them the right to host the game. But the United had been bouncing around between a couple of different stadiums (including a misguided attempt to elevate to "big league" status by playing at Shea Stadium

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