Listening to Dave Chadwick discuss what made the Atlanta Chiefs successful in in the NASL more than 30 years ago is a lot like listening to Atlanta United President Darren Eales discuss what he thinks will make the MLS expansion team successful when it begins play next year.
Sitting in the basement of his lovely home in Cumming, with a few soccer mementos (Pele jersey, NASL trophy) that he’s gotten out for the occasion and would make hardcore soccer fans pay for admission, “Chaddy,” as he is known, tells tales of the soccer’s struggles in the U.S. in the 1970s and ’80s, how he helped the Chiefs re-discover success as their coach, and why he thinks Atlanta United will be successful, as long as they follow one lesson that he learned:
“The future isn’t down the road,” he said. “The future is now.”
To understand the present and future of soccer in Atlanta, Chadwick begins to discuss the past.
The Chiefs’ marketing director the late 1970s and early ‘80s was Ken Small. Before Atlanta, he did marketing for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, where Chadwick was the assistant coach .
To illustrate Small’s brilliance, and how hard he tried to get people to come to games in Atlanta, Chadwick begins to tell one of several stories that will be spun in the afternoon.
The Strikers were the team in Fort Lauderdale in the late 1970s. The other competition was the Miami Dolphins, and they played in a different time of the year.
So, there was keen interest in the soccer team.
The Strikers had lost two consecutive games but had never lost three games back to back so Chadwick said media-created pressure was starting to build.
Small came up with the idea before home games that the players would be driven onto the field in some random piece of transportation. One time it was on a London double-decker bus. Another time it was on the backs of Harley-Davidsons.
Chadwick said the fans would come early and tailgate just to see what was next and that the players had no idea what it would be until they left the locker room.
Losers of two games, Chadwick and the team walked out of the locker room to see what would transport them to the field.
It was a hearse. A funeral procession started playing. The hearse was driven onto the track that circled the field.
A coffin rolled out.
Suddenly, the coffin opened and coach Ron Newman jumped out bellowing, “We’re not dead yet.”
Chadwick said the crowd went crazy.
The Strikers won the game.
Chadwick came to Atlanta trying to build on the popularity the team experienced in the late 1960s and ’70s.
However, the team that he inherited was terrible, going 7-25 his first season in 1980.The attendance, he said, wasn’t much better, averaging less than 5,000 per game. And they tried everything short of mock funerals.
Chadwick made the tough decision in the offseason to let 12 players go. The team was older and new talent was needed.
The biggest problem was he didn’t have a proven goal-scorer. He put a list together of 18 players in the U.S. and England that might be signable.
Back in his native England during the offseason, Chadwick was at Bolton Wanderers and looking at their roster.
One name, one player who had a long history of scoring goals at some of the best clubs in England, stood out: Brian Kidd. He was around 30 years old with a history of scoring a goal every two games.
It turns out that Bolton was looking to unload Kidd’s salary for the summer, so Chadwick convinced Kidd to come to America on a loan basis.
Kidd scored goals. The Chiefs started to win. The crowds started to come, just not enough to save the franchise.
Kidd’s importance was twofold: Not only was he productive, but he wanted to be in Atlanta. He wanted to mentor the younger players and teach them what he knew about the game.
Those are some of the same things that Eales has said he wants to see from the Designated Players that Atlanta United may eventually sign. They can’t be on the team just to get a paycheck. They must want to play for Atlanta. They must understand and embrace their significance in healthy, productive ways that will benefit the team and community.
Chadwick’s plan with his new team focused on using his team’s fitness to pressure opponents. He didn’t tell anyone at the time, but he also made the field smaller — 65 yards wide by 110 yards long — to make the pressing more effective.
The Chiefs, with a younger roster led by Kidd, bounced back to go 17-15 in 1981 and win the division title and move into the playoffs. The trophy for winning the league’s Southern Division title sits on his bar. The team averaged more than 6,000 fans per game.
“We outdrew the Atlanta Hawks that year playing Indoor soccer at the old Omni ,” he said. “But it took a lot of marketing money to do that.”
Money. When Ted Turner took over ownership he promised at least three years. Despite the increased attendance, the team — and league — didn’t have many sources of revenue such as TV or social media. Naming rights for academy kits, training centers, supporting sponsors of stadiums — all the things that are commonplace now and that Atlanta United has secured or is securing — weren’t yet available.
“With revenue not coming in, it wasn’t possible to keep it going,” Chadwick said.
Turner fulfilled his three-year agreement and became focused on starting CNN. The team folded before it could defend its title.
Chadwick then joined the Georgia Generals of the old American Soccer League before coaching the Fort Lauderdale Strikers/Minnesota Strikers until the demise of the NASL in 1984. He moved his wife and family back to Atlanta and was hired as the first paid Director of Coaching in Georgia when he joined AFC Lightning in Fayetteville.
He also was on the USSF national coaching staff and on Georgia’s Olympic Development Staff, where he coached Josh Wolff, Ricardo Clark and Clint Mathis, who were all capped by the U.S. men’s national team and played in the World Cup.
As dark as the time with the Chiefs was, Chadwick sees big things happening for Atlanta United, with a note of caution.
“Soccer is still a tough sell,” he said. “People have only so many dollars to spend on sporting events.
“But you see the new generation of young people who have embraced soccer and want to see a great team in the MLS. Atlanta has also become a huge multi-national city.”
He appreciates the hires that Atlanta United has made. He likes what he has heard from owner Arthur Blank, Eales and others. He likes that the hires that have been made are people who, like Kidd, want to be in Atlanta.
But, echoing other things Eales has said, the team must hire a coach who knows the MLS rules and appreciates that the challenges of coaching in America are unlike anything else in the world: the travel, the weather, the size of the country.
Lastly, he said the team must put a good product on the field. Eales has said many times that Atlanta United will be competitive from Day 1. They have had more time to prepare than any other MLS expansion team. There’s no reason the team shouldn’t be competitive.
“You have to win,” Chadwick said. “People expect you to win. You can play pretty, pretty soccer, but you have to find a way to win.”
