THE ORIGIN STORY
Tom Simpson founded the club under the name “San Francisco United Soccer Club” in 1981. The goal was to create a club that would embody everything that is great about the beautiful game and the city they represented. Also, he wanted to give his talented sons and their friends a place to play after college since there were limited soccer-playing options after graduation.
“We were the players that no one wanted,” offered Kimtai Simpson, one of Tom’s two sons. “Nobody knew who we were and we all had funny names and we had a lot of minorities.” Tom Simpson was a standout athlete in his own right, growing up playing multiple other sports outside of soccer at a very high level. This was his first venture into the game of soccer, however. “He loves the camaraderie of a team, it was as much for him as it was for the kids,” said Kimtai.
When Tom founded the team, he was still in medical school and coached his sons and their friends on the side. By 1985, the team had become so successful as a youth club that they began seeking opportunities to play youth opponents at an international level. The first was a trip to the 1985 Gothia Cup, one of the biggest youth tournaments in the world held annually in Gothenburg, Sweden. Then came an appearance in the renowned Milk Cup in Ireland that same season. These tournaments were the catalyst that really propelled the club to the next level. “We were all pretty ambitious kids,” said Kimtai Simpson. “We all dreamt about playing outside the United States.” The club’s success attracted other players of a high caliber, building a powerhouse team in the northern Californian youth leagues, dominating many of the state tournaments.
The club became so dominant that the term “super club” began to spread within the northern California youth soccer community. Many of the best players from around the Bay Area wanted to play together and thus ended up on San Francisco United. By 1991, the club was regularly winning the Northern California State Cup as an adult men’s team. Part of this was due to participation in the highly-competitive San Francisco Soccer Football League. The SFSFL was founded in 1902 and remains the oldest continually-operating soccer league in the United States.
“The environment in San Francisco certainly produced as many players as any other projects have. If you look at the guys from the ‘96 MLS draft how many guys came from the San Francisco league, it was imbalanced to the rest of the country,” commented midfielder Troya Cowell. In 1992, Tom made the decision to join the US Inter-Regional Soccer League (USISL), the league that would eventually become the current United Soccer Leagues (USL). They would become one of the league’s first West Coast teams. “The kids had been successful and if we wanted to continue to play it was the only option. We weren’t looking to go professional, we were just looking for a place for these kids to play.”
The team would be rebranded as the “All-Blacks” for their inaugural USISL season in 1992. The same team that played together as children continued to play together and began to dominate the 3rd and 4th divisions of US Soccer leading up to their 1997 US Open Cup run. “It felt like we all grew up together,” said Shani Simpson. “We weren’t the most talented team player-for-player, but we had been together for so long,” said forward Shane Watkins. The team continued to seek out and play high-level competition including playing multiple scrimmages against international sides participating in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. For many member’s of the team, they felt the group could compete with just about any side in the world. “Our international record is crazy, I mean we played against Brazil before the ’94 World Cup and we were in that game,” noted Troya Cowell. “We weren’t afraid of anyone and we had the record to back it up.”
The All-Blacks won the ‘94 Pacific Division of the USISL and the ‘95 Western Division. The club once again rebranded in 1996 becoming the San Francisco Bay Seals following a lawsuit from the New Zealand National Rugby team who are also known as the All-Blacks. That season they joined the USISL Premier, which would later become USL League Two. However, they were pros in name only. None of the players were paid during that 1997 season.
“Our team was very close and they understood the difficulty of financing a professional team,” said Tom Simpson. “We became ‘professional’ just so we could play at a higher level but the guys understood that there was no money involved. Even the following year when we were in the A-League we didn’t pay the players. I just didn’t make financial sense.” Most of the players just had other jobs, but one of the biggest ways Tom was able to help his players was to help them find work. “I can’t tell you how many of them worked at the hospital where I was practicing,” said Tom. “I had a good connection with the parking department. The wages were decent, about $14.00 per hour back then. Our team captain, Angelo Sablo, is still there, only now he’s the boss. I got help from Russ Murphy, a contractor and youth soccer coach, who had access to properties being developed. He would allow guys to stay for free in some cases. We did a lot of stuff like that (SFBaySeals).”
