The Caribous of Colorado
Featured image – New York Daily News
Football kits symbolise a clubs’ identity. Many showcase the history, traditions and culture of the towns or cities those clubs represent. Some define an era within the game; and some, like the one I’m writing about here, encompass an ideology of their time.
Football shirts are, for many reasons, sought after by collectors. A particular player, club, nation, style, brand or success are amongst the reasons certain shirts are desirable. There’s also novelty factor, and that’s almost certainly the reason why the matchday kit of former North American Soccer League side the Caribous of Colorado is well known to enthusiasts, but perhaps far less widely known amongst football (soccer) fans on the whole.
To give a bit of background, in the mid-1970s the Denver Dynamos, the city’s original NASL representative, was sold and moved to Minnesota (becoming Minnesota Kicks), such is the way American sporting franchise ownership operates.
Denver was now left without a professional soccer club. To fill that void, former owner of Tacoma Tides and future Washington governor Booth Gardner would join forces with Chicago-born music and marketing mogul James Guercio in paying around $1M to acquire the franchise that would become the Caribous of Colorado in time to partake in the 1978 edition of the NASL.
Image – Spirit Music Group. A young James Guercio, co-owner of the Caribous of Colorado
On the pitch the team struggled. Playing their home games at the 76,000 capacity Mile High stadium in Denver, originally under the stewardship of former Northern Ireland International David Clements, ‘The Caribous’ won just eight of their 30 matches, finishing in last place as a consequence.
However the Caribous of Colorado would not be looked back on for their exploits on the field of play. More so their somewhat unique match kits and the marketing thought process behind them.
Soccer at that time was in its infancy in the United States, competing with the more popular domestic sports of baseball, basketball and American football. Therefore club owners tried to be inventive as they looked for ways to drum up support.
Coming from a music and marketing background, owner James Guercio wanted The Caribous kit to be different; to stand out, and align with local traditions of the time. So he designed and produced home and away kits with a long, western-style fringe akin to that of a country music star’s getup hanging down from a large leather panel across the middle. The home kit consisted of white, brown and tan shirts (with white shorts and socks), while the away shirt was similar, with the shirts being black, brown and tan (with accompanying brown shorts and brown and white socks).
Image – sportclubmemories.com. The iconic Caribous of Colorado home shirt from 1978
They certainly were eye-catching. They were unique, they stood out; but perhaps not for all the right reasons, and they clearly weren’t suitable for the practicalities of the professional game, with alterations quickly required.
The centrepiece fringe had to be shortened right down as opponents were using them to pull back Caribous players during matches. The leather trim also had to be minimised amid safety concerns from players and league officials due to injuries caused by contact with the ribcage panel.
The heavy material from which the kits were made were not conducive to the hot Denver temperatures, and Caribous players were known to complain about the performance-effecting defects the shirts contained.
Later voted the worst soccer kit in American history by uni-watch.com, the sole reason for the kits’ design was for marketing; the novelty. Another ultimately unsuccessful gimmick tried by an NASL club to grab attention, to drive interest; to gather support. But Guercio didn’t stop there. Caribous players were expected to wear giant cowboy hats as they entered the pitch for the pre-game formalities, whilst the coach was required to do likewise in the dugout for the entire match.
The whole thing showed where the sport of soccer was in that NASL era. Searching for, but rarely finding, an identity; a following, a demographic, a gap in the sporting industry. A sellable product that would make money which is hugely important for consistent sporting success, perhaps more so in The United States than other countries.
Image – @AntiqueFootball. The Caribous shirt – both in and out of action
The Caribous of Colorado never really took off as Gardner and Guercio had hoped. Sparse crowds at The Mile High Stadium averaged out at less than 7,500 per game across their sole campaign in 1978.
The franchise had generated enough interest for a quick sale however, and following the culmination of that 1978 season, was sold and moved to Atlanta becoming the Atlanta Chiefs, though they were another enterprise that wouldn’t last long either. Again, a sign of the times for the fledgling sport of soccer in the United States throughout the 1970s. One thing we are left with though, are those shirts. One of a kind. Unique. Encapsulating an era and its commercially centric outlook.
Chris Reilly – May 2023