available now in Kindle format
“Summer Of ’67” by Ian Thomson, RedMatchday’s US Correspondent charts the story of the 1967 United Soccer Association summer league, including Aberdeen’s participation under the guise of the Washington Whips. This extract features Washington’s trip to face the Detroit Cougars franchise, represented by Northern Ireland’s Glentoran, on June 11, 1967.
Washington’s trip to Michigan to face the Detroit Cougars stood out for the Whips players due to the violent nature of the Motor City.
Employment and housing discrimination and police harassment of the burgeoning African-American community had been cited as factors behind a 1943 riot that ended with 34 people dead and nearly 800 injured. The flight of Detroit’s middle classes toward the suburbs after World War II heightened inner-city decay.
Ethnic tensions were simmering, and Washington’s visit occurred six weeks before the outbreak of one of the most notorious riots in the history of the United States when a police raid on an unlicensed bar provoked five days of rage and destruction that left 43 people dead, more than 1,500 injured and about 5,000 homeless as $500 million of property damage was caused.
Whips defender Ally Shewan and roommate Dave Johnston were given an early warning of their dangerous surroundings when they sat out on the rooftop terrace of the team’s hotel.
“We could hear these gunshots and everything,” Shewan recalled. “We thought we’re not going to venture out much here.”
A warning from the hotel concierge not to turn left upon leaving the building also struck goalkeeper Bobby Clark as being out of the ordinary.
“It was the first time that anyone had ever told me to be careful where I walked in a city,” Clark said. “It was something you didn’t have to think about too much in Aberdeen.”
Undeterred, Shewan and Johnston along with Danish midfielder Jens Petersen ventured out one afternoon for a stroll along the Detroit River. They soon became involved in a bureaucratic wrangle that saw them quarantined by border patrol officers for a couple of hours. The trio had asked a tollbooth operator at the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit to the Canadian city of Windsor if they could walk across the structure to admire the views.
“The only thing we wanted to do was go across to the other side of the bridge and come back,” Shewan said. “We didn’t stay any length of time, only about 15 or 20 minutes.”
A customs officer met the players upon their return and demanded to see identification before allowing them to set foot on American soil. The group had left their passports in the hotel and they were held until their identities could be confirmed.
Shewan’s Detroit adventure took a brighter turn when a conspicuous entourage appeared as some of the players were walking around downtown doing a spot of shopping.
“That’s Cassius Clay,” exclaimed Shewan, who fumbled around for a postcard before approaching the boxer.
Clay, or Muhammad Ali as he now called himself after joining the Detroit-based Nation of Islam religious movement, had been stripped of his world heavyweight title two months earlier after refusing to step forward when his name was called during a Vietnam War draft at an Armed Forces examining and entrance station in Houston.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali had previously told reporters when he had been reclassified as being available for the draft. The boxer claimed exemption on the ground that he was a minister for the Black Muslims and he complained that the racial composition of draft boards discriminated against blacks.
“Excuse me, Cassius,” Shewan said. “Can I get your autograph, please?”
“Muhammad Ali, man,” replied the deposed world champion before scribbling his signature.
A lively 2-2 tie at the rain-soaked University of Detroit Stadium left both the Whips and the Cougars slipping one point further behind the Cleveland Stokers (Stoke City) in the USA’s Eastern Division. The result remarkably kept the transplanted East Belfast side’s unbeaten run alive after four games.
“We thought it would be a simple job against part-timers, but we were just as exhausted if not more than them at the final whistle,” remarked Washington forward Jim Storrie after the game. “Their football was really terrific.”
“Summer Of ’67” is available in Kindle format from July 1 via Amazon.co.uk. A print version will follow in the coming weeks.
