1988

Program Cover	Program Cover	Tickets	Sounders Reunion
Reunion Match	Opening Night	Calgary Kickers	86'ers
LA Heat	Earthquakes	Championship Program! (Thanks to Bruce)	Emerald Cup
Reunion	Reunion	Media Guide	Youth Pass
1988 Schedule	Official 1988 WSA Press Releases: Seattle's Championship! (Thanks to Chris)	Official 1988 WSA Press Releases: 1988 Playoffs (and Standings) (Thanks to Chris)	San Diego & Neza (Mexico) (Thanks to Bruce)
Meet the 1988 Champs! (Thanks to Bruce)

Date	Opponent	Result	Score	Seattle Goals
4/6	California Kickers	W	1-0	Fry
5/7	Calgary Strikers*	W	3-1	Gunnell, Fry, Wall
5/15	at FC Portland	W	3-1	Wall, Gibbs, Hattrup
5/22	Vancouver 86ers	W	2-1 (tb)	Wall
6/5	Los Angeles Heat	W	5-0	Gibbs (2), Hattrup (2), Henderson
6/11	Middlesbrough*	W	2-1	Fry, Henderson
6/18	at Los Angeles	L	0-2
6/19	at San Diego Nomads	W	1-0 (ot)	Henderson
6/24	San Diego	L	0-1
6/26	Neza* (*=Non-League)	W	2-0	Hattrup, Beeson
7/1	San Jose Earthquakes	W	3-0	Henderson, Fry, Hattrup
7/9	FC Portland	W	3-2 (ot)	Gunnell, Henderson, Hattrup
7/16	at California	W	2-1	Henderson, Hattrup
7/17	at San Jose	W	3-1	Gibbs, Hamel (2)
7/30	San Jose / LEAGUE FINAL	W	5-0	Bruch (2), Hamel, Hattrup, Fry
8/3	at Oldham Athletic*	L	0-2
8/6	at Lincoln City*	D	2-2	Beeson, Bruch
8/10	at Middlesbrough*	L	0-3
8/13	at Sunderland*	L	0-3
8/6	at Hull*	D	2-2	Willoughby (2)

The FC Seattle Storm celebrate a goal in the WSA championship win over San Jose.

It's blurry...but it happened. FC Seattle await the trophy presentation.

(Both photos courtesy of Jeff Lageson)

From the US Soccer Archive:

Western Soccer Alliance (Div. 3)

The WSA reached a certain level of stability in 1988, as no franchise changes occurred. The season was back to 12 games. A new scoring system was implemented. Regulation wins were worth six points, penalty kick wins were worth four, while penalty kick losses were worth two. Bonus points were awarded for each goal scored, up to three per game. The clear intent was to discourage ties and encourage goal scoring. The main effect was to inflate the number of points, but it had no appreciable effect on goal scoring, with the best teams scoring little more than 2 per game. The league did well enough to attract more talented players, especially recent college graduates.

Four teams remained in the race through much of the season, with Seattle finally pulling it out at the end of the season beating San Diego by 7 points for the regular season crown. In the playoffs, San Jose defeated San Diego on penalty kicks in the wild-card game, before falling to the Seattle Storm 5-0, as the Storm took the championship.

After the season, the league changed its name to the Western Soccer League, and added four teams to replace San Jose. The Seattle Storm embarked on a postseason tour of Great Britain, taking on Middlesborough, Sunderland, Hull City, Lincoln City and Oldham. They beat Middlesborough 2-1.

Final WSA League Standings, 1988

                                    G W L GF GA PTS
Seattle Storm               12 10 2 25 10   83
San Diego Nomads        12   9   3 23 17   76
San Jose Earthquakes     12 7   5   20 19   61
Los Angeles Heat           12 7   5   20 17   61
California Kickers           12 3   9 17   28 35
F. C. Portland                12 1 11 16 32 22

Semifinal: San Jose 2 at San Diego 1 (Pks)
FINAL: San Jose 0 at Seattle 5

From Jeffrey Lageson:

The net has a site that shows the 1988 WSA final as 3-1. Seattle and the USL media guide
has it at 5-1. I remember it being 5 goals so I checked the microfiche
Times at the library and it was 5-0. According to the match story and
the box score the Storm held on to their shutout with a big save in the
87th by Jeff Koch and both Chance Fry and Peter Hattrup scored.

Ticket stubs courtesy of Jeff Lageson.

Programs courtesy of Eric Gilbertson.

Storm Host Sounders Reunion Game

(see photos above)

The Storm hosted a Seattle Sounders reunion game in 1988. A large crowd turned out to see the likes of Roger Davies, Ray Evans, Tony Chursky...

Roger Davies celebrated the only goal of the game (which pitted Sounders against Reunion-Timbers). But it wasn't about the result...it was about a chance to gain "closure" on teams that left so suddenly, and the players we loved who went with them.

From Jeffrey Lageson:

(Via Microfiche research at a King County Library)

The Sounders reunion game was in 1988, but not on the date on the program, the
program cover on the museum site shows 7-6-88, but it was 7-9-88 and the
Sounders reunion was against a Timbers Reunion team. Over 7K in
attendance at the reunion game and the Storm beat Portland in the
nightcap the same night.

Pictures from Jeff Lageson.