1976 Tampa Bay Rowdies indoor season

Tampa Bay Rowdies

1976 indoor season
Owner	George W. Strawbridge, Jr.
General manager	Beau Rodgers
Manager	Eddie Firmani
Stadium	Bayfront Center
NASL	Regional: Champion League: Champion
Top goalscorer	League: Clyde Best (7 goals) All: Clyde Best (11 goals)
Highest home attendance	5,787 (March 27 vs. Lancers)
Lowest home attendance	4,762 (March 12 vs. Diplomats)
Average home league attendance	5,464
Home colors Away colors
← 1975 1977 →

The 1976 Tampa Bay Rowdies indoor season was the second indoor season of the club's existence. The Rowdies were able to replicate their 1975 outdoor success by winning the North American Soccer League's 1976 indoor championship.

Club

Roster

No.	Position	Player	Nation
1	GK	Arnie Mausser	United States
1	GK	Bob Stetler	United States
2	DF	Farrukh Quraishi	England
3	DF	Alex Pringle	Scotland
5	DF	Malcolm Linton	England
7	FW	Stewart Scullion	South Africa
8	MF	Randy Garber	Canada
9	FW	Clyde Best	Bermuda
10	FW	Rodney Marsh	England
11	FW	Doug Wark	Scotland
12	FW	Derek Smethurst (capt.)	South Africa
14	FW	Joey Fink	United States
15	MF	Mark Lindsay	England
16	DF	John Bluem	United States
17	MF	Eddie Austin	United States
18	DF	Arsène Auguste	Haiti

Management and technical staff

• George Strawbridge, Jr., owner
• Beau Rogers, general manager
• Eddie Firmani, head coach
• Chas Serednesky, business manager
• Francisco Marcos, director of public relations
• Mike Dolan and Stan Taylor, trainers
• John Kauzlarich, team physician
• Alfredo Beronda, equipment manager

Honors

• NASL Indoor Tournament: Champions
• NASL Indoor, Eastern Regional: Regional champions
• International Cup: Champions (friendly)

Individual honors

• Tournament MVP: Clyde Best (Tournament totals: 4 games, 7 goals, 4 assists)
• All-Tournament Team: Clyde Best, Stewart Scullion, Derek Smethurst
• Regional MVP: Stewart Scullion (Regional totals: 2 games, 3 goals, 1 assist)
• All-Regional Team: Stewart Scullion, Rodney Marsh, Arsene Auguste

Review

The Tampa Bay Rowdies were the runners-up of the 1975 NASL Indoor tournament in March, and the winners of Soccer Bowl '75 in August, both held California at the home venues of the San Jose Earthquakes. In October 1975 the NASL announced that the Bayfront Center would host both the 1976 Indoor Eastern Regionals and Final Four.^[1][2] It was later announced that Tampa Bay would also play a pre-tournament international friendly at the Bayfront Center. This meant that all of the Rowdies indoor matches for 1976 would be played at home.^[3]

Friendlies

Billed in media reports as an International Challenge Cup Match,^[4] Tampa Bay’s first game was a pre-tournament international friendly versus Santos F.C. of Jamaica, and played on March 6 at the Bayfront Center. The Rowdies easily defeated their guests, who were playing indoor soccer for the very first time, by the score of 11–4.^[5]

Eastern Regionals

The winner of the Eastern Regional would gain an automatic place in the Final Four. In their first tournament game the Rowdies battled back from a 4–1 deficit midway through the second period, to score eight straight goals and defeat Washington, 9–5.^[6] The following evening Tampa Bay had a much easier time in defeating the Boston Minutemen, 5–3, as they dictated play until the final minutes, when Boston scored two meaningless late goals. Those two victories left the Rowdies as the only undefeated team in the group, and therefore champions of their region for the second straight year.^[7] Stewart Scullion was named Regional MVP, with Rodney Marsh and Arsene Auguste joining him on the All-Regional squad.

Regional standings

Pos	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	GD	PTS
1	Tampa Bay Rowdies	2	2	0	14	8	+6	4
2	Washington Diplomats	2	1	1	14	12	+2	2
3	Miami Toros	2	1	1	9	15	-6	2
4	Boston Minutemen	2	0	2	9	11	-2	0

Final Four

In the semifinal Tampa Bay held a slim, one-goal lead in the third period over the Dallas Tornado. With less than three minutes remaining the Rowdies broke open the match the by scoring three straight goals in a span of 81 seconds to defeated Dallas, 6–2, and earn their second straight trip to the indoor finals.^[8]

On March 27, 1976, the Tampa Bay Rowdies played in their third championship final out of three total competitions in their brief history. This time they would face surprise finalists Rochester Lancers. Unfortunately for Rochester, goalkeeper Jim May was severely injured late in their semi-final upset win over San Jose, and could not play in the final. The Rowdies were without Rodney Marsh for the contest, as he suffered a head injury in the semi-final. In a closely fought match Tampa Bay prevailed, 6–4, on three goals by Derek Smethurst, two by Clyde Best, and one by Mark Lindsay. Smethurst’s game winning, third goal came with 3:18 left in the match. Best was named tournament MVP, with Smethurst and Stewart Scullion joining him on the All-Tournament squad.^[9]

Bracket

	Semifinals					Championship Final
	M1	Rochester Lancers	6
	W1	San Jose Earthquakes	4
						M1	Rochester Lancers	4
						E1	Tampa Bay Rowdies	6
	E1	Tampa Bay Rowdies	6
	W2	Dallas Tornado	2

Championship standings

Pos	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	GD
1	Tampa Bay Rowdies	4	4	0	26	14	+12
2	Rochester Lancers	4	3	1	20	16	+4
3	San Jose Earthquakes	4	3	1	35	18	+17
4	Dallas Tornado	4	2	2	20	15	+5

Match reports

Statistics

Scoring

GP = Games Played, G = Goals (worth 2 points), A = Assists (worth 1 point), Pts = Points

Player	GP	G	A	Pts
Clyde Best	5	11	5	27
Stewart Scullion	5	6	6	18
Rodney Marsh	4	4	7	15
Derek Smethurst	4	4	0	8
Randy Garber	5	2	3	7
Mark Lindsay	5	3	0	6
Doug Wark	3	2	1	5
Arsène Auguste	4	1	2	4
Alex Pringle	4	1	1	3
Joey Fink	1	1	0	2
Eddie Austin	1	1	0	2
John Bluem	1	0	1	1

Goalkeeping

Note: GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; GA = Goals against; GAA = Goals against average; W = Wins; L = Losses

Player	GP	Min	GA	GAA	W	L
Arnie Mausser	4	160	13	3.66	4	0
Bob Stetler	2	65	5	3.46	1	0

Player movement

See also

• 1976 team indoor stats

References