The forgotten story of....

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Dallas Tornado's 1967-68 world tour

Dallas' journey saw them cheat death at the hands of Greek-Cypriot terrorists, visit Vietnam amid war and survive an on-pitch riot in Singapore. The football must have felt like a sideshow

 

The Dallas Tornado tour squad, posing for a team photo in 1968.

 

If there is one thing lacking when it comes to modern football tours, it is usually the football.

Money, adulation and marketing are the key tenets of a well-planned, well-publicised pre-season visit. Sporting gains are usually far outweighed by financial ones.

 

What, then, would the Premier League bean counters have made of Dallas Tornado, and their extraordinary world tour of 1967-68? Playing 32 games, across five continents and 26 countries over a seven-month period, Dallas, in just about every sense, took on the world. From Spain in August to Honduras in March, via Christmas in Tokyo and New Year in Manila, this was genuine football globetrotting. And long before it was fashionable, too. No product-placement, milking the market or "expanding the brand" here.

 

Dallas' journey saw them cheat death, Final Destination style, at the hands of Greek-Cypriot terrorists, visit Vietnam whilst war raged around them, and survive an on-pitch riot in Singapore. The football, at times, must have felt like a sideshow. Some sideshow, mind. During the tour, Tornado played in front of crowds of up to 50,000, and against sides of the calibre of Real Oviedo, Fenerbahce and the Japanese national team.

"An amazing trip that will never be repeated again," is how Bill Crosbie, one of the players involved, describes the tour. Even that hardly seems to do it justice. This was a plot worthy of Hollywood.

 

Crosbie was a 19-year-old bus conductor when he answered an advert in the Liverpool Echo, looking for "top-class amateur footballers". Soon afterwards, he was asked to attend an interview at the city's Adelphi Hotel.

There, he found a man named Bob Kap. Serbian by birth, Kap – real name Božidar Kapušto – had studied alongside Ferenc Puskas at the Hungarian national football academy, but was forced to flee Europe during the 1956 uprising.

 

He moved to Toronto, Canada, where he worked briefly as a reporter for a local football magazine. His true passion, though, was always for coaching. So when Dallas, looking for someone to prepare a team for the inaugural North American Soccer League, came calling, he jumped at the chance. Kap used his contacts to recruit from across Europe. Eight of the touring side were English, and seven of those were Merseysiders. They were supplemented by five Norwegians, two Dutchmen, two Swedes and, improbably, just one American, Jay Moore.

Crosbie remembers his initial meeting with Kap well: "I was asked a lot of questions, about the amateur teams I had played for, how fast a runner I was, why I wanted to join his team, things like that."

 

Flanking the coach was Dave Moorcroft, a local amateur player of some pedigree. Moorcroft had played for Skelmersdale United at Wembley in the FA Amateur Cup final, and would go on to play more than 100 times for Tranmere Rovers. "He was there to vet the players," remembers Crosbie. "I remember leaving thinking that was the last I would hear on that."

 

He was wrong. A month later, a telegram arrived at his home, asking him to a second meeting, this time at the Regent Hotel. It was the message that would change his life. "He asked me how much notice I would have to give at work," says Crosbie. "I said two weeks, but in extreme circumstances one week. He told me if I wanted to join his team then I would have to fly to the South of France the following morning!"

 

Crosbie, who had he been on duty that night would have missed Kap's telegram, agreed, only to be told there was a further condition from his new manager. "Bob told me that the next time he saw me, I had better have had a haircut!" he remembers. "My hair was shoulder-length at the time, very much like The Beatles, but Bob wanted an All American look, crew cuts for everyone. It had to go."

 

Luckily, one of Crosbie's neighbours was a hairdresser, and so was summoned to an emergency 10pm appointment. Bill's brother was given a resignation letter to hand in to his bosses, and that was that. He was on the first train out of Lime Street the following morning. "We did not have a phone, so I could not even contact my girlfriend to say goodbye!" Crosbie laughs.

 

Together with another Scouser, Bobby Roach, Crosbie flew to Nice to join up with the side. Tornado had already played five games by that point, visiting both Spain and Morocco. The last was a 4-0 defeat to Real Oviedo, then playing in the Segunda Division. With Crosbie and Bobby Roach on board, and with the players instructed to wear club suits complete with Stetson hats wherever they went, Dallas travelled to Istanbul, drawing 2-2 with the Turkish champions Fenerbahce, having led 2-0 at one stage, in front of a crowd of 25,000. Crosbie missed the game with a virus, which doctors believed was caused by undergoing too many injections within a short space of time.

Their next game was to take place in Cyprus, though fate would rear its head before then.

 

After a day sightseeing at the Acropolis, the team were delayed heading to the airport and missed their flight from Athens to Nicosia by half an hour. Lucky them. Flight BEA CY284 exploded at 29,000ft after a bomb was detonated under a seat, killing 63 people. Its intended target, the Greek army general Georgios Grivas, had also missed the flight, and later travelled to Nicosia on the same plane as the Tornado team.

"Missing that plane was the best thing we ever did," says Crosbie, with grim understatement. "But that second flight was the longest two hours of my life!"

 

Two defeats in Cyprus, including one in 95 degree heat, were followed by a trip, via Beirut, to Tehran, where they took on an Iranian Air Force team containing seven internationals, losing 2-1. Draws with a Tehran Select XI and a Governors' XI in Shiraz followed. Kap, though, was preparing to shake up his squad. Crosbie remembers: "A new player called Graham Stirland had joined the tour in France. He was a winger, a fantastic player who was always getting back to help his fullback out.

 

"We arrived in Tehran for our next flight and Graham was asked to follow Frank Randorf, Bob Kap's assistant, to the toilets. Ten minutes later, Frank returned alone. When 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."

 

From Tehran, the squad embarked upon a mammoth tour of the Iranian mountains, taking in games in Rasht and Shahi, as well as three seven-hour coach journeys. With the squad preparing to leave Iran for Pakistan, the Norwegian defender Tom Weinholdt returned home to undergo knee surgery, reducing Kap's numbers to just 16, of which two were goalkeepers.

 

Nonetheless, Tornado saw off the Pakistan national team 2-0 in front of 35,000 spectators in Karachi. The following day, in Lahore, a new Pakistani side gained revenge, winning the 'Second Test' 4-2 in front of 25,000.

Games in Lahore, Dhaka and Chittagong followed, before the side headed to India. "We took a four-hour ride on a rickety old bus to the border," says Crosbie. "Then when we got to the border, we had to take our suitcases off the bus and walk the last 400 yards.

 

"There were local rioters screaming and hurling abuse because the country we were walking to was India. We got through passport control and walked 400 yards to our next bus, and the people were laying garlands at our feet!"

To make matters worse, a number of non-Commonwealth players had been denied entry to India, and were forced to spend two days waiting for their visas in a run-down hotel near to the border. "They told us the only thing they had to eat in those days was a small chicken," says Crosbie, whose British passport ensured he made it through without a hitch.

 

Dallas played seven games in India, winning only one, before heading to Sri Lanka. Having lost two games against the national team, they were off to Burma but, typically, their journey was not without danger.

 

"We should have flown via Madras and Calcutta on the 25th of November," says Crosbie. "But 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, playing billiards and cards, and left on the 28th at 4am to sneak out of India."

 

From Burma, and a defeat to the national team in front of 47,000, it was on to Singapore, and a hostile reception from locals angered at the arrival of "Yankee Imperialists". That hostility extended from the stands to the pitch.

Crosbie remembers: "When one of our players, Per Larsen, fouled one of theirs, they started throwing stones and other things onto the pitch. Per then further annoyed them by bowing. We had to be escorted from the pitch and stayed in the dressing room for two hours after the game."

 

A re-match the following day was, wisely, cancelled, and the team travelled to Jakarta for two games, before moving on to Saigon. This was a critical juncture in the Vietnam War. The Tet offensive, seen by many as the turning point of the conflict, began a month after Tornado's last game, a 2-2 draw with Club Saigon.

"We were well-protected, with a police escort from the airport to hotel," says Crosbie. "But we were allowed to walk around Saigon on our own as sightseers!"

 

Despite a telling off from American Military Police for standing still on a Saigon street corner – a dangerous move with locals patrolling the area on scooters armed with hand grenades – Crosbie and the team left Vietnam unscathed and unbeaten, and travelled via Hong Kong to Taiwan, where they beat the national team in front of 43,000.

 

Christmas was spent in Tokyo. The players were each given portable Panasonic radios as gifts from the management, and sampled the delights of sushi for the first time before losing 3-2 to Japan in Osaka on Boxing Day. They had already lost 2-1 in Tokyo's Olympic Stadium, used for the 1964 Games, on Christmas Eve. Next stop was Manila, and a 7-0 win over a Select XI on New Year's Day. A defeat to the Philippines National team followed, before an 18-hour journey to Australia for what was to be the home stretch of the tour.

 

Nine games, spread across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tahiti, saw a tiring team, minus the goalkeeper Odd Linberg who had returned home ill, win just three times. By the time they headed back to Dallas on 15 February, they were given two weeks to "set up their lives" ahead of the NASL season, before a four-game "mini-tour" of Central America.

 

"We were exhausted, both mentally and physically," says Crosbie, and his assessment would appear to have been spot on. Dallas lost their first league game 6-0 to Houston Stars, and won just four of their 32 NASL fixtures that season, losing 26. Their goal difference, minus 81, told its own story.

 

Kap, unsurprisingly, was replaced by Keith Spurgeon early in the campaign. Crosbie, too, would depart early. Having snapped ankle ligaments in a game on a baseball pitch at St Louis, he would eventually leave the squad after playing just six matches. "I enjoyed my time in the USA," he says. "But my work Visa only allowed me to play soccer. This was the time of Vietnam, and foreign nationals who were not using their work visas could be drafted to the US army. The risk was too great, so I went back to England."

 

Dallas would play a key role in the NASL until their dissolution in 1981. They were championship winners in 1971, and finished runners up two years later. The likes of Alex Stepney, Alan Hinton and the Liverpool duo Kevin Kewley and Brian Kettle would all represent the club at various points.

 

Their World Tour, however, is easily the greatest, most incredible tale in their history. As Crosbie, who hopes to organise a reunion for the players next year, says, we will never see its kind again.

 

Kap's legacy, meanwhile, remains. He is widely credited with changing the face of NFL by introducing "soccer-style" kickers to the game in the early 1970s. One of his recommendations, an Austrian named Toni Fritsch, was the first European-trained soccer player to play in the NFL, and Kap would directly introduce eight more in the next three years.

 

Ever the innovator, Kap would attract headlines in 1978 when fronting a "business syndicate" that attempted to acquire the Argentine World Cup star Ricky Villa. The bid, audacious in the extreme, failed. Villa, along with Ossie Ardiles, moved to Tottenham instead. In later years, Kap would become an accomplished painter. Some of his work, Gridiron-themed, can be found in the NFL Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio.

 

Kap died in his sleep in Ontario, Ottawa in March 2010, aged 87. His role in the Dallas Tornado World Tour, however, should ensure his place in football history is assured. You might not have heard of him until today, but nobody who went on that tour will ever forget Bob Kap.

 

• A shorter version of this article appeared in the Liverpool Echo on December 20, 2013.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/jan/09/forgotten-story-of-dallas-tornado

 

[stringvest]

brilliant that.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

brilliant that.

I thought so too. Fed up of reading about Fat Sam and Moyes.

 

Just shows you what football used to be about and the lentghs some went to play the game.

[stringvest]

That would make a great film.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

A good read, cheers for that.

[col06]

That would make a great film.

yeah be good that i imagine :)

[Sweeney287]

Good read that

[Skidfingers McGonical]

That would make a great film.

Escape To Victory II

[bri]

I read this yesterday, incredible bouncing round all those places in the 60's, what a tale in the ale house a year or so down the line. There must be a whole load of photos of that tour somewhere, would make a great book

[bri]

here you go.

 

http://www.nasljerseys.com/Players/C/Crosbie.William.htm

 

http://www.nasljerseys.com/Misc/Tornado%2067-68%20World%20Tour2.htm

 

Brilliant, I'd have b&w photo on the wall

[Nunavut Patrick]

I thought so too. Fed up of reading about Fat Sam and Moyes.

 

Just shows you what football used to be about and the lentghs some went to play the game.

 

http://mytampabayrowdies.blogspot.ca/2008/12/sam-allardyce-1983.html

 

 

Big Sam was some fullback in the NASL.......

[Skidfingers McGonical]

http://mytampabayrowdies.blogspot.ca/2008/12/sam-allardyce-1983.html

 

 

Big Sam was some fullback in the NASL.......

 This bit made me laugh 

 

 

 

 Sam signed for the Rowdies. He would appear in 11 games and scored 1 goal with 1 assist. He made his Rowdies' debut, on July 1st at Seattle, in a 0-6 loss