The Pittsburgh Phantoms were a professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

team based in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

in 1967. The club was one of the ten charter members of the non-

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

sanctioned National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). All of the team's home games were played at

Forbes Field Forbes Field was a baseball park in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to June 28, 1970. It was the third home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) team, and the fir ...

, which also served as the home of the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...

. The team folded at the conclusion of the 1967 NPSL season.

History

In 1966 several groups of entrepreneurs were exploring the idea of forming a professional soccer league in United States. Two of these groups merged to form the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) and franchise rights were awarded to ten ownership groups, with one given to a group of Penguins investors with Peter Block acting as owner and president. In November 1966, Herbert "Bavarian Fats" Vogt, was introduced as the team's head coach and general manager, having signed a two-year contract. At his first press conference he gave the first public announcement that the team would be named the "Pittsburgh Phantoms". However two months later, Vogt resigned from his position with the team with the team citing ill health. Vogt later stated that he did he was in excellent health and in a letter to the team claim that in addition to being squeezed out of the job, personnel director Raymond Schwab was not signing "first class players". In March 1967 it was announced that Schwab was leaving his position and was replaced by Ted DeGroot.

János Bédl János Bédl (10 September 1929 – 9 December 1987) was a Hungarian football player and manager. Managerial career In 1967, Bédl managed the Pittsburgh Phantoms of the National Professional Soccer League. In 1968, the NSPL merged with the U ...

became the Phantom's second coach, but was fired on May 1, 1967, after just four games and the team in first place in the Eastern Division. Bédl sued the team and eventually settled out of court for $32,500. Co Prins then became player-coach for about a dozen games before being replaced by Josef "Pepi" Gruber in June. During this period, the Phantoms settled out of court with Sparta Rotterdam, a Dutch professional soccer club based in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

, for $50,000 when the team signed Theo Laseroms to a contract, while he was still under contract with Sparta. The team finished the season in 5th place in the Eastern Division with a record of 10 win, 14 loses and 7 draws and with an average attendance of 3,122. Recording losses of $700,000-750,000, the team folded.

Year-by-year

References

{{Pittsburgh sports Defunct soccer clubs in Pennsylvania Phantoms Soccer clubs in Pittsburgh National Professional Soccer League (1967) franchises 1967 establishments in Pennsylvania 1967 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Soccer clubs in Pennsylvania Association football clubs established in 1967 Association football clubs disestablished in 1967