Former Atlanta Chiefs goalkeeper Graham Tutt was part of one of the first youth soccer clinics the Chiefs put on in the early 1980s. Tutt also played goalkeeper for several other Atlanta-based teams. He still resides in Marietta and remembers fondly those first efforts to establish the sport in metro Atlanta.
It was somewhat of a communist sport to some people, I think, when I arrived.
But the American public, they were inquisitive enough to want to get their kids involved because they saw how much fun it was.
What we relied heavily upon was community appearances. We literally made dozens over a very short spell: Augusta, Rome, Commerce, Cobb County, Fayette, Stone Mountain … we were all over the place. We would do three locations a day, often going to areas where communities were just starting programs.
The dads didn’t know the rules. My first clinic was in Commerce. I chatted about five minutes and a hand went up. The kid asked, “How many on a team?”
I thought, “Oh my god.”
So we did some pioneering.
I felt like we, back then, there were only 18,000 kids playing. So I felt like we started a little bit of a fire for the game.
I remember another clinic at Stone Mountain — I still have a photo of this — there was a little girl in diapers, scoring a goal past me on Friday.
And then you’d go and face Giorgio Chinaglia on Saturday.
But there was a lot of satisfaction in the pioneering. A lot of the contacts I made 30 years ago, we are still friends today. We all had contracts and could go elsewhere, but many of us fell in love with Atlanta or Cobb County and still live here.
We found as the season went on, the crowds became more educated.
Now, there are enough people in Atlanta and Georgia that could fill up this new stadium. If a new franchise comes, I hope to be involved with it and continue to use grass-roots contacts.
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