The Rowdies are back. And I still miss them.
Back in the day, the Tampa Bay Rowdies were synonymous with textbook marketing with a cast of young, friendly foreign soccer players who truly seemed to enjoy their ambassadorial roles in the Tampa of the mid-1970s. They put on clinics, turned up at birthday parties and hung out at Boneshakers in Hyde Park. They weren’t overpaid, and they never showed up on police blotters. And before there was a Lombardi Trophy or a Stanley Cup around here, there was a North American Soccer League Soccer Bowl championship in 1975.
That was then, this is not.