![]() Although the Sounders would never again play before a crowd of this size, their attendance continued to grow, as they moved to the playoffs once again. Despite the intensity of the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland "I-5 rivalry" it was the moneyed Cosmos that would prove to be the Sounders' true nemesis. The home team lost 3-1 to the Pele-driven Cosmos. In 1976 the Sounders moved to the "state-of-the-art" Kingdome (where there was no chance of rain, but they did have to deal with the evils of AstroTurf), facing the New York Cosmos in the first event ever in the new stadium, before a sold-out crowd of 58,128. Even more unusual, it never rained on the team in any of the games played in either of the years the Sounders played in Memorial Stadium. They also achieved their goal of making the playoffs in only their second season. Based on their first season success, seating was expanded in 1975, and in July 1975 the team set a NASL attendance record with a crowd of 17,925, a number they achieved two more times that year. They played to six sellout crowds in their inaugural season, and despite a rocky start, the team ended the season with a 10-3-7 record, narrowly missing the playoffs. Playing in Seattle Center's Memorial Stadium, the Sounders hosted the first sell-out crowd (13,876) in NASL history on June 22, 1974. Unlike many expansion teams (think of, say, the Mariners), the Sounders made an instant impact on both the league and city. ![]() A month later, Sounders was selected as the winning name, beating out over 3,000 other suggestions, including "Mariners" (one of the finalists). Seattle's entry was owned by a group of local businessmen and women who promptly named John Best coach of the team, and held a "name the team" contest. (Portland would enter the league in 1975). The team began in December 1973, when the North American Soccer League (NASL), founded in 1967, decided upon a course of westward expansion, hoping that this would stabilize the rocky league, awarding franchises to Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. The last five years were both glorious and awful, marked by inconsistency and high drama. The first five years saw steady growth, and are considered, by those in the know, to be the Camelot years. The soccer team, which existed for 10 years, seemingly suffered from a split personality. Instead, it evokes fond memories of the likes of Davy Butler, Adrian Webster, Tommy Hutchison, and the early years of the Seattle Sounders. To longtime Seattle soccer fans, "Camelot" doesn't bring to mind images of knights and round tables. In this People's History, Heather Johnson writes about the Sounders, their rabid fanbase, and their pesistent nemesis, the New York Cosmos. In their early seasons, they routinely packed Memorial Stadium at the Seattle Center in later years, they drew massive crowds to the Kingdome. The orginal Seattle Sounders played in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1974 until 1983.
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