EPISODE 205: Philly's "Vet" - With Tom Garvey

We fire up the GPS for a trek back to the City of Brotherly Love this week for a fond - but decidedly one-of-a-kind - remembrance of Philadelphia's oddly beloved "octorad"-styled outdoor sports mecca known as Veterans Stadium.

Memoirist, Philly native and actual (Vietnam War) vet Tom Garvey ("The Secret Apartment") joins us to delve into his incredible story of living in a self-fashioned apartment underneath the seats of the old Vet's left-field Section 354 (above the visiting team's baseball bullpen) in the early 1980s:

From the opening chapter of "The Secret Apartment":

"Let's begin an implausible story with a seemingly simple yet complex question: If you were single, never married with no children or dependents, would you, if you had the opportunity, have lived 'on the down low' in a secret apartment in Veterans Stadium?

"In this proposal, we have an off-the-wall South Philly version of 'Phantom of the Opera,' but the larger notion this question begs could easily challenge the inner demons of sports fans anywhere. If you had an opportunity to live in a major sports stadium of a team you grew up loving, what would you have done?

"In my case: I could, so I did."

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The Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium. A Surreal Memoir - buy book here

EPISODE #93: National Soccer Hall of Famer Bobby Smith

We close out an amazing second season of episodes with a special year-end conversation featuring the US pro soccer pioneer who is, at least indirectly, responsible for the creation of this little podcast.  

Just weeks after signing with the fledgling New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League in January 1976, league All Star Bobby Smith (along with fellow Philadelphia Atoms teammate Bob Rigby) was already out pounding the promotional pavement in support of his new club – including (unwittingly) a stop at host Tim Hanlon’s then-elementary school in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey to hand out recreational league trophies and sign autographs. 

The seeds of life-long pro soccer fandom were quickly sown, soon blossoming into an obsession with America’s most famous and successful franchise – and, over time, morphing into an enduring fascination with professional teams and leagues across all sports which, like the Cosmos and the NASL, ultimately came and went.

Defender extraordinaire Smith joins the podcast to discuss his remarkable American pro soccer career before, during and after winning back-to-back NASL titles (1977, 78) with the Cosmos – including:

• Winning his first league championship with the inaugural 1973 Philadelphia Atoms;

• A skills-enhancing off-season loan to Irish first division side Dundalk in 1974-75;

• Playing alongside world’s-best talent like Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, and Carlos Alberto during his time in New York;

• Post-Cosmos stops with the NASL’s San Diego Sockers, Philadelphia Fury and Montreal Manic;

• Indoor soccer adventures with the MISL’s 1980-81 Philadelphia Fever;

• 18 caps with the US National Team during the 1970s; AND

• Induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2007.

A big thank you to all of our great sponsors this past year – SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, OldSchoolShirts.com, 503 Sports, and Audible!

Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos - rent or buy here

Philadelphia Atoms NASL & Philadelphia Fever MISL T-Shirts from OldSchoolShirts.com - click individual shirt photos or buy here

EPISODE #67: Behind-the-Scenes Tales from the Front Office with Thom Meredith

Our World Cup fever has yet to break, and we spend this week reveling in some of the heretofore unexplored (at least on this podcast) nooks and crannies of modern-day American pro soccer history with one of its most unsung front office heroes. 

In a career spanning over four decades, sports PR and event management executive Thom Meredith has proverbially “seen it all” across some of US sports’ most remarkable leagues, franchises and governing bodies – including remarkable (and sometimes dubious) assignments like handling press for the woeful NFL expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1976-77, managing communications for Lamar Hunt’s World Championship Tennis circuit of the early 1980s, and directing a litany of events for the fast-growing (and World Cup USA-fueled) US Soccer Federation of the 1990s. 

But it’s Meredith’s work across some of the most exciting (and exasperating) teams of the late 1970s/early 1980s North American Soccer League – the Tampa Bay Rowdies, Washington Diplomats, Philadelphia Fury, and Dallas Tornado – as well as the enormously well-funded, but ultimately ill-fated Women’s United Soccer Association of the early 2000s, that really piques our obsessive interests.

In this episode, we journey back with Meredith – the consummate professional soccer management insider – as he recounts priceless moments shared in the trenches with a veritable Who’s Who of the modern American game’s most indelible personalities: Shep Messing, Francisco Marcos, Al Miller, Phil Woosnam, Jim Karvellas, Seamus Malin, Alec Papadakis, John Hendricks, Timo Liekoski, Dick Berg, Tony DiCicco, Pele – and, of course, the incomparable investor-patron Hunt.

We thank Podfly, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, and Audible for their support of this week’s show!