The Story of FC77
Our purpose: Playing and supporting the sport of soccer and good fellowship.
In the summer of 1977, the year that Shakira was born and Elvis left the building, the Portland Park Bureau scheduled a soccer jamboree for people who wanted to try playing this new game. That gathering at Delta Park gave birth to a team called SJO Irregulars, sponsored by Seton, Johnson & O'Dell, a local engineering firm. Glenn O'Dell provided the fees, and a motley group of men who'd played soccer primarily in the privacy of their own minds became the first of FC77's several teams. Among them were Mark Dillon, Mike Calder, and David Porter. None of them knew any better at the time.
Following that summer's recreational league, the SJO team acquired the tag of "Irregulars" and signed up to play in the adult men's league that fall. Over subsequent years, the core group continued to play together though the name changed as time passed.
They became the "Stouthearts" when attorney, Bob Stout, took over the sponsorship. Then a series of sponsoring brewing companies found their way onto the team's jerseys: Tiger Beer, Newcastle Ale, Young's Ale, and Old Nick's, a devilish (sadly discontinued) brew from Young's Brewery of England.
By the 1980s the team had actually improved its play enough that it had competed on the 'big rug' at Civic Stadium in a couple of division championships. The original players had also aged enough that the team began to consider splitting in two to accomodate the desires of many of the younger players to be more competitive and of many older players to play at a more casual level. With the formation of multiple teams, the 'club concept' began to take on a reality.
The Old Nick’s team reverted to that long-ago name in the mid-nineties, with a single brief stint as FC77 Pyramid while trolling for sponsor dollars which never arrived. Somehow the Old Nick’s name seems to fit, though the original black jerseys with Old Nick himself leering from them are long gone.
The Newcastle team was the original spin-off team and now plays in Over 50. The next team to emerge from existing players was today's PBR team in Over 40. The club concept begun with these three teams and continued with the Bollocks team, Rangers, Hibernian and Ajax . Today, some of the team’s names have changed, and the club team roster continues to grow.
Nos ludere donec moriatur
“We play until we die"