History
Roots of the Earthquakes
San Jose Clash logo 1996-1999
The franchise's roots trace back to 1974, when the North American Soccer League (NASL) awarded an expansion franchise to San Jose, named the Earthquakes. The club's original owner was Silicon Valley businessman Milan Mandaric (later the owner of Portsmouth FC in the English Premier League). The NASL Earthquakes included such players as George Best, Guus Hiddink, Laurie Calloway and Johhny Moore. The NASL folded after the 1984 season, and the Earthquakes played in the Western Soccer League (WSL) from 1985-88, under the ownership of
Peter Bridgwater.
In 1988, Bridgewater sold the team. When the new owner ran the team into the ground, leading to its folding later that year, the WSL awarded a franchise to
Dan Van Voorhis, a local real estate lawyer. Van Voorhis named his new team the Blackhawks, after a real estate development of his. The San Francisco Bay Blackhawks entered the WSL for the 1989 season and quickly became one of the dominant U.S. professional teams. In 1991, Van Voorhis hired a fomer Earthquakes' player,
Laurie Calloway, as coach. Calloway coached a team full of players that would later play for San Jose in MLS, including
John Doyle,
Troy Dayak,
Paul Bravo and
Eric Wynalda. In a preview of what was to come later in MLS, bitter disagreements between Calloway and Wynalda led to Calloway kicking Wynalda off the team in 1992. Blackhawks owner
Dan Van Voorhis later pulled his team out of the WSL's successor league, the
American Professional Soccer League, after which they played as the
San Jose Hawks in the
USISL in 1993. The team folded at the end of the 1993 season. Two years later, Van Voorhis successfully led a San Jose bidding group which was awarded one of Major League Soccer's inaugural teams. At that time, he handed over all existing Hawks player contracts, front-office resources and the rights to play in Spartan Stadium to MLS in exchange for Type C stock in the league. He also became the franchise's investor/operator until outside concerns forced him to divest himself of these positions prior to the league's launch. Meanwhile, a direct connection to the earlier Earthquakes came in the person of Peter Bridgwater, named as General Manager of the MLS team. Although Bridgwater, at the time, still owned the rights to the Earthquakes' name and logo, MLS initially named the team the San Jose Clash.
Calloway's regime
The team became known as the Clash at the urging of
Nike, a major investor in MLS. On December 7, 1995, Bridgwater hired Calloway as the team's first coach, providing a second direct connection with the NASL Earthquakes, as well as a connection with the Blackhawks. Ignoring the past history between Calloway and Wynalda with the Blackhawks, the team acquired Wynalda just over a month later, on January 23, 1996. The Clash's connections to the Blackhawks continued when the Clash made the first trade in MLS history, sending
Rhett Harty to the
MetroStars for
Troy Dayak, both players having spent several years with the team. Despite the presence of Calloway and much of his former team, the Clash failed to achieve the dominance achieved by the Blackhawks. While Wynalda scored the first goal in MLS history, he and Colloway were soon at each other's throats. The tensions on the team led eventually led to a locker room brawl between Wynalda and
John Doyle. On top of that was an infamous incident in which Wynalda hired an aircraft towing a banner demanding the Clash fire Calloway.While the Clash made the postseason in the inaugural 1996 MLS season, and Doyle earned recognition as the best MLS defender, the team floundered in 1997. Part of the problems stemmed from the disruption caused by the feud between Wynalda and Calloway. Others stemmed from poor player acquisitions and Calloway's constantly shuffling line ups. For example, following the 1996 season, the Clash traded away their leading scorer,
Paul Bravo, and were unable to resign their third leading scorer,
Missael Espinosa. The team also chased marginal foreign players such as Jorge Rodas. By the middle of the 1997 season, the team was sinking fast and Bridgwater fired Calloway, to be replaced by
Brian Quinn.
Quinn in charge
While Quinn seemed to bring a breath of fresh air, Wynalda and the problems associated with him remained. Quinn also quickly gained a reputation for a confrontational style which backfired. The Clash finished 1997 with a 12-20 and at the bottom of the Western Conference standings. In 1998 things got no better as the team finished 13-19 and well out of playoff contention. During the 1999 pre-season, the saga of player-coach antagonism continued when
Richard Gough left the team after an argument with Quinn. By the end of 1999, Quinn was done and the team released him to hire
Lothar Osiander.
Osiander
Despite the franchise's official name change from Clash to Earthquakes on October 27, 1999, the presence of a new coach did nothing for the team as Osiander continued the Clash tradition of player-coach animosities. Osiander had a habit of airing his disagreements with his players in the press and in 2000, his feud with
Mauricio Wright led to Wright's trade.
Earthquakes resurgent
After missing four consecutive post-seasons with three failed coaches, the Earthquakes hired head coach
Frank Yallop days before the
2001 MLS SuperDraft. Yallop's personnel changes and deft coaching with the help of assistant coach
Dominic Kinnear and goalkeeper coach
Tim Hanley, along with the allocation of star forward
Landon Donovan on loan from
Bayer Leverkusen, quickly turned around the Earthquakes' on-field fortunes, spurring the biggest regular season turnaround in league history (from 29 points in 2000 to 45 points in 2001) and leading the team to a 2-1
MLS Cup 2001 overtime victory over the archrival
Los Angeles Galaxy.
The Quakes followed with two consecutive runners-up finishes for the
MLS Supporters' Shield and a 4-2
MLS Cup 2003 win over the
Chicago Fire. Prior to reaching the 2003 final, the Earthquakes had rallied from four goals down to beat the Galaxy, 5-4 on aggregate, in a first-round playoff that many MLS observers described as the greatest in MLS history. Following the season, Yallop returned to his native Canada to coach the
Canadian men's national soccer team. Assistant coach Kinnear was then promoted as the team's next head coach, and fomer San Jose player
John Doyle was named as his assistant.
Having just won two MLS Cup titles in three years, the Earthquakes were poised for greater success both on and off the field. However, in January 2004, rumors surfaced that the club might be sold to the owners of Mexico City's Club America (and potentially renamed "America San Jose" or "America USA"). This led to the resignation of the club's General Manager, Johnny Moore, whose roots with the club dated back to his days as a player for the NASL Earthquakes. Former Los Angeles Galaxy defender Alexi Lalas was named as his replacement. Under Lalas' management, the club planned a move to Houston. Meanwhile, when the Quakes' star player, Landon Donovan, played briefly in Germany, Lalas traded away his rights, thus allowing Lalas' former team, the Galaxy, to acquire him. Later, Lalas was named General Manager of the Galaxy.
On the field, new coach Dominic Kinner led the team to two more playoff appearances, including a
MLS Supporters' Shield win in 2005.
San Jose Mercury news
Linear Mode
