Alan Green, 1979

It's Hard To Be A Real Football Club In A (NFL) Football Town

I have lived the entirety of my nearly 50 years in the Washington, DC area. All the professional sports teams that have made the national capital their home, no matter how short or long their stay, have found that if their name wasn't Redskins, they were never going to be the top sporting interest in town. The Bullets, now Wizards, and Capitals have long played second fiddle to Dan Snyder's inept attempt to build a competent, let alone, winning franchise. All Diplomats fans had to deal with this frustration, especially when it came to finding Dips merchandise in local stores.

Thank you, Kevin Howard

Kevin shared this picture of his team, which attended a Dips practice in 1980, posing with Johan Cruyff.

Dips First Experience In the Shootout

The NASL introduced the shootout as a tie-breaking format at the beginning of the 1977 season. On Monday, May 23, 1977, the Dips had their first taste of the new alternative to penalty kicks. Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year to all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxoD1a9l3Gg&list=UUym8_cP1fZ9lckcliOg5QHg

The Diplomats Once Planned a Stadium of Their Own

A long forgotten piece of Washington soccer lore is the fact that the team once seriously toyed with the idea of their own suburban stadium. Already playing in Fairfax, Virginia, and inspired by the posh ambiance of the Capital Centre, which had opened two years earlier, the team looked to upgrade
the facilities at W.T. Woodson High School, aka Fairfax Stadium. On April 13, 1976, a press conference was held announcing the project which featured an architectural vision of the new complex. John Carbray, who was hired as General Manager at the end of the 1976 season and made many major upgrades to the teams image and facilities, arranged for the team to permanently move to RFK Stadium in the spring of 1977, thus putting an end to the idea of a pitch in suburbia.

From left, John Kerr, Tom McConville and Dennis Viollet review plans for new stadium.

McAllister vs Pele, RFK Stadium, August 6, 1977

Never a Dull Moment

Doug Dugan http://washingtondiplomats.blogspot.com/2014/04/from-inside-1980-pre-season.html shares more of his memories of the 1980 Diplomats. In addition to the matches, practices were equally exciting.

“The Dips practice field was located next to the DC jail. One day we were practicing and a bunch of alarms started going off. All of the sudden we see two guys come hauling butt past the field (which was fenced off thank god) heading down toward the (Anacostia) river, which was nearby. The whole place was surrounded by police and a helicopter. The police told Gordon (Coach Gordon Bradley) there was an escape, and we were to stay within the field until they gave us the all clear.   A few minutes later they were putting a soaking wet prisoner into a vehicle. They apparently got his buddy on the other side of the river.”

A view of the Dips practice field, located near RFK Stadium. Note the housing projects in the background. Doug Dugan is at far right.