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Behind the Stripes

Atlanta Chiefs

By Atlanta United FC

October 11^th, 2018

More than 70,000 fans are packed into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, cheering on their hometown club. But deep in the stadium tunnel, where the crowd roar is an echoing low drum, four Atlanta pioneers could hardly believe their eyes.

“When we started, if we got five or six thousand in Fulton County Stadium, we’d be lucky,” Alan Hamlyn says. “At that time, there was no backing because people in Atlanta didn’t know what soccer was.”

That “we” is the Atlanta Chiefs, the first ever professional soccer team in Atlanta. In 1968, they were the champions of the North American Soccer League, 50 years ago this year. This was a very different soccer scene, in a very different Atlanta.

“I grew up in Atlanta,” Bob Hope, who worked in the Chiefs front office, says. “Genuinely, I thought soccer was pronounced like ‘saucer.’ We just had never heard of it. There was no internet, it wasn’t an international city. We just had no idea.”

But the scene unfolding before them at Mercedes-Benz Stadium wouldn’t have happened without them. Because the current Atlanta soccer craze didn’t come out of nowhere –– it came from seeds planted and fostered long ago. It all started in the community.

“Phil Woosman, our first manager, made all the players go out to schools and parks and do clinics,” says Hamlyn, who played as a defender on the early Chiefs teams. “Coaching kids and everything, that was part of what you were expected to do as a player.”

And it didn’t take long for the soccer bug to catch on among the city’s kids.

“You had never heard of soccer, never seen it played,” Hope says, “but then you could suddenly, almost instantaneously drive around the suburbs and see kids playing soccer. It didn’t take long at all to get kids playing, because they loved it.”

And it wasn’t just off the field where the Chiefs were winning, they were turning heads with their success on the pitch. Winning the NASL championship in 1968, they played an exhibition match against the reigning English champions, Manchester City and sent them home with two losses. The headlines in England read, “Atlanta, champions of England.”

“We played a lot of international games, against Santos, against Manchester City,” Hope says. “It really kind of woke up the city to the fact that there’s a world out there that we could be a part of, both in soccer and beyond. It was a seed that was planted that kind of grew into the Olympics and the international airport and all of that.”

And all the while, they were teaching kids about the beautiful game, street by street, turning Atlanta into a soccer city. And those seeds blossomed; the DeKalb YMCA where Hamlyn coached produced Alec Kann, who lined up for Atlanta United in their inaugural match, and Lagos Kunga, one of the team’s first-ever Homegrown signings.

“The connections still today are amazing,” said Mark MacKain, who played as a defender for the Chiefs in the ‘70’s. “Phil Woosman starts the NASL team, then they hired Dave Chadwick, who brought in Graham Tutt, our goalkeeper. He goes and starts the program at Life University and one of his players was Tony Annan, who is now heading up the youth system for Atlanta United. Now two of our boys are playing in the Atlanta United academy. So it’s this great circle.”

And all the kids they coached grew up, still loving the game, and are raising kids of their own that love the game. And this network grew and grew into the 70,000 fans cheering in front of them today.

“I played in some 70,000+ games in the earl NASL days, but it was nothing like this,” Hamlyn says. “This is like Europe, one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever seen. So while I’ve seen big crowds before, I couldn’t have imagined this in my wildest dreams.”

And it’s thanks in large part to the four people standing on the field being honored at halftime, who put in the work to grow the game when it was still in its infancy. Far away from the crowd and the glamor, they laid the groundwork for what we see today.

“Our coach used to say that if you knocked your head against the wall long enough that it will finally crumble,” Hamlyn says, looking out over the sea of red, black and gold. “In this case it took a while, but if you look out there, there it is crumbling right there.”

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