The Football Tragic

A brief perusal of Pittsburgh sport forums is enough to confirm that "Stan" Terlecki became a beloved idol during his time playing for the Pittsburgh Spirit. The parochial Pennsylvania mining town had always cherished its sporting teams, and the slender Pole with his machine gun of a right foot provided some memorable moments in between the (American) football, basketball and ice-hockey.

But with glasnost and perestroika offering hopes of greater political freedom in Poland, and his wife Ewa missing her homeland dreadfully, Terlecki decided to head home in 1986 after his final season with the Spirit. It was too late to make a claim for a spot in the 1986 Polish World Cup squad, but Terlecki's old club LKS Lodz welcomed the former rebel back for two more seasons.

Now past 30, Terlecki might have been expected to settle down in his old digs. But the restlessness that had characterized his life kept him on the move for the next few years, first to Legia Warsaw where he won two Polish cups, then to America again for a season with St. Louis, then back to LKS, and finally to Polonia Warsaw where he ended his career. Touchingly, he hung on long enough at Polonia for his son Maciej to join the squad, and father and son briefly shared the field in the father's last season.

Post-football, in the uncertain years following the break-up of the Soviet bloc, Terlecki turned to business, using his American connections to secure a job as the representative of an American concern in Poland. But when the company went bust, Terlecki was left in the cold. He started a business venture of his own, which ended in disaster.

The former student activist ran for politics as well, but unlike his erstwhile national-team colleague Grzegorz Lato, he experienced no success in that arena. The expense involved in a political campaign, on top of his earlier business disappointments, had its inevitable financial effect. Terlecki had returned from the United States a relatively wealthy man, but the money dried up as this restless stone kept on rolling. He returned briefly to football, running an academy of sorts, but again without success.

Health problems began to appear as well, as Terlecki approached his half-century. Friends indicated that the former international preferred to treat his ailments with alcohol rather than the heart medication he needed. 

Terlecki's final years were difficult ones. Holding a mundane municipal job at a sports centre in Lodz while collecting a meagre state pension, in between stints in hospital, he was a forgotten figure. His cardiac troubles worsened, and his heart finally gave out on December 28, 2017. Stanislaw Terlecki, once a hero on two continents, a man who played with Franz Beckenbauer and against Diego Maradona, who befriended Pelé, and who played a small part in the series of revolts that helped to break up the Soviet empire, passed away in his sleep at the age of 62.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:21 AM 0 comments

Stanislaw Terlecki's blistering form in the indoor game secured him a move to the headline club of the NASL, the New York Cosmos, in the winter of 1983. He had managed to remain active in the outdoor game with the Golden Bay Earthquakes earlier in the year, and the Cosmos used him in both their indoor and outdoor teams.

Although the Cosmos's most glamorous days were behind them, they were still the biggest draw in the competition, and the playing roster was an interesting mix of ageing European heavyweights and promising younger players. Johan Neeskens, still a force to be reckoned with, played in defence, while the attack featured the young Paraguayan star Roberto Cabañas, among others.

Pelé was still involved with the club, and Terlecki struck up an acquaintance with the Brazilian legend during his time with the Cosmos - hence the title of his eventual autobiography. In it, he stated that Pelé had outlined to him the "three pillars" of true football mastery: running with the ball without looking (at the ball), picking a pass without looking, and shooting without looking. Indeed!

Playing with the Cosmos enabled the Polish star to encounter some international opposition as well in the "Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup", a four-team summer friendly competition pitting NASL clubs against some of Europe and South America's finest (well, finest available). In 1984, the Cosmos were the only American participants, along with Barcelona, Udinese and Fluminense of Brazil.

In the "semi-final" against Barcelona, Terlecki lined up for the Cosmos against none other than Diego Maradona. It was not the first time the two had faced each other: an under-strength Polish team had met Argentina in a friendly in Buenos Aires in 1980 (just prior to the Okecie airport incident), and Maradona had put on a superb display, securing a 2-1 victory for the then-world champions with a trademark free kick. Terlecki was probably Poland's best player on the day, but there was little he or the others could do about Maradona's sublime passing and surges from midfield.

Less than four years later, a great deal of water had passed under the bridge for both players. The Challenge Cup clash was an exciting and vibrant game, perfect summer entertainment for the crowd at Giants Stadium. Although Maradona's compatriot Armando Husillos scored a hat-trick for the Spaniards, they ultimately went down 5-3. Maradona even missed a penalty in the second half, after which two fine crosses from Terlecki, who played excellently throughout, set up the Cosmos's final two goals.

In the final against Udinese, the Cosmos won 4-1. Again Terlecki was prominent, scoring with a beautiful glancing volley on the run (quite reminiscent of Johan Cruyff's famous goal against Brazil in 1974) to put his side 3-1 ahead.

Buoyed by his American form, Terlecki began to harbour hopes of returning to the Polish national team in time for the 1986 World Cup. The political situation in his homeland was thawing, and his family was keen to return. After one more (slightly less prolific) season with the Pittsburgh Spirit, he decided to head home. Okecie was now a long time ago, and he could start with a clean slate.

To be concluded in Part 5.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 7:55 AM 0 comments

To say that the history of professional soccer in the USA is somewhat complicated would be a considerable understatement. After the long period of mid-century amateurism, there were many competing attempts to make the sport commercially viable. The original North American Soccer League, formed in 1968, was in fact a merger of two competing leagues whose earlier battles are worth an article in themselves. Nevertheless, by the mid-seventies the NASL had stabilised, and a galaxy of fading stars decamped to the Land of the Free, the most prominent among them being Pelé. 

But there was another competition that became very successful at the beginning of the 1980s: the Major Indoor Soccer League. The indoor game, with its similarity to basketball, had long been popular in the States, and there was sufficient interest in it to run a competition in tandem with the glitzy NASL. It was at one of the new MISL franchises, the Pittsburgh Spirit, where Stanislaw Terlecki's football career was to reignite.

Frozen out of Polish football after his political indiscretions, which included an abortive attempt to form a Solidarity-esque players' union, Terlecki initially headed to Holland in search of a club. Now 25, and with a young family to support, he needed to find work quickly. He was unable to secure a contract in Holland, but while there he made contact with John Kowalski, a young Polish-American coach only a few years his senior, who had managed the Pittsburgh Spirit in their first stint in the MISL in 1979. The club was now re-forming, and they needed an overseas star player.

It was a good fit. Pittsburgh has a Polish community of long standing (it even boasts a suburb called Polish Hill), and Kowalski hoped that the sensitive and potentially homesick Terlecki could make a home away from home in the city...and score some goals in the process.

On the latter score, he certainly succeeded. His two years at Pittsburgh saw him score an avalanche of goals in the unfamiliar format. With 74 (!) goals in his first season, he was second only to another former international from Eastern Europe, the Yugoslav Slavisa ("Steve") Zungul, on the scoring charts. A local star was born. Stanislaw became "Stan the Fran" (for "franchise"), and the correct Polish pronunciation of his surname became an all-American "Turr-lekky". All in a good cause.

On the personal front, there were, perhaps inevitably, a few problems. Not yet proficient in English, the prickly Pole did not always get on well with his team-mates, and sometimes took simple miscommunications as personal affronts. "A great player," recalled one of his Pittsburgh team-mates many years later, on an internet forum. "But a total wacko."

A TV report early in his second season gives a good impression of Terlecki's state of mind in his first couple of years in America, and of Kowalski's efforts to integrate him into the team and the society. Terlecki had another successful season with the Spirit in 1982/83, and he and his family were starting to feel more at home in America.

But the next year came the call from the NASL's glamour club...and the lure was impossible to resist. Rubbing shoulders with Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Neeskens, and even Pelé - what more could a footballer ask for? More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:34 AM 0 comments

Like his close contemporary Andras Torocsik, Stanislaw Terlecki showed impressive determination in regaining his best form after what might have been a career-ending injury. Back in the national team for the 1980 Nations Cup qualifiers, he played perhaps the best game of his life in September 1979, ruling the field and scoring a decisive brace against Switzerland in Lausanne. Poland failed to make it through a very tough qualifying group - they were pipped at the post by the Dutch, as indeed they had been in 1976 - but there was every reason for confidence ahead of the 1982 World Cup.

Again, Terlecki would not be there. And this time it was not fitness but politics which prevented his attendance.

The Okecie airport incident, known as the "Okecie Affair" in Poland, was an event with enormous ramifications. It was perhaps the most serious confrontation between footballers and the authorities that ever occurred behind the old Iron Curtain; the seeds of the rebellion which began with the famous Polish Solidarity movement sprouted with a vengeance on that late November morning in 1980.

The beginning of the story was a tawdry one. The Polish squad was assembled for a trip to Italy, prior to a World Cup qualifier in Malta. The first-choice goalkeeper Josef Mlynarczyk - later a European Cup winner with Porto - had been out on the town with a journalist the night before, and night turned into morning. When the time came for the team to head to the airport, Mlynarczyk was, well, not functioning terribly well. Polish officials ordered the indisposed keeper to stay behind; his team-mates, however, had other ideas.

The incident itself was relatively trivial, but it served as a touchpaper in the midst of a number of frustrations, ranging from the perennial issue of proper remuneration to more mundane concerns (apparently one of the reasons Mlynarczyk escaped for the evening was that the hotel food was inedible). 

Terlecki, the perpetual rebel, was immediately in his element. He promptly drove Mlynarczyk to the airport in his own car, and assumed the leading role in the subsequent confrontation with the Polish officials, which almost turned physical. Not content with stopping there, the young winger also began harassing the reporters covering the team's departure, whose morning had suddenly become a little more interesting. Team-mates later complained that the incident would never have become a scandal of such proportions had Terlecki not indulged in such antics.

In the event, the Polish coach Ryszard Kulesza was eventually persuaded to relent and restore Mlynarczyk to the squad. The establishment press, however, mercilessly attacked the players, and Kulesza found himself under intense pressure. To make matters even worse, Terlecki had organised a meeting in Italy with the stridently anti-communist Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla in a small Polish town and a hero to Polish Catholics. This was too much for the Polish authorities, and Terlecki and Mlynarczyk, along with Zbigniew Boniek and the veteran defender Wladyslaw Zmuda, were banned from the team for a year. To cap off a perfect trip, the eventual qualifier in Malta was abandoned after locals began throwing stones at the Polish team. (FIFA eventually awarded the match to Poland, who were 2-0 up at the time.)

Kulesza resigned in protest, and it was left to his successor, Antoni Piechniczek, to intercede with the authorities for the lifting of the bans on the "Gang of Four". Mlynarczyk, Boniek and Zmuda were all eventually restored to the side after expressing some suitable remorse, and all made notable contributions to Poland's third-place finish at the 1982 World Cup. But Terlecki was a different matter. He had been a thorn in the commissars' side for too long already. He had earned their ire on a number of previous occasions, firstly with his unapproved transfer from the military-aligned Gwardia Warsaw club to Lodz when he was still a teenager, and later with some barbed comments when he was called in to assist with radio commentary on the 1978 World Cup.

Fired from his club LKS Lodz as well at the start of 1981 after joining in student strikes in the city, Terlecki decided it was time for a new start in football. And where else would a fiery anti-communist go but to the United States of America?

Stay tuned for Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

A degree in history, with a bit of student activism thrown in. A brief but prominent role in one of the finest international teams of the era. A head-on clash with the Communist authorities. An attempt to re-create the famous Solidarity movement in the football arena. Stardom, and a mountainload of goals, in America. Becoming a team-mate of Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Neeskens, among others. Two on-field encounters with Diego Maradona, in very different circumstances. An autobiography entitled "Pelé, Boniek and Me".

You certainly couldn't say that Stanislaw "Stan" Terlecki had an uneventful life. And yet few remember him nowadays, outside of a proud mining town in America which once boasted an equally proud football team.

The son of two university academics, Stanislaw Terlecki (pronounced "Terletski") was born in Warsaw on November 13, 1955. His father was a history professor and the young Stanislaw followed in his father's footsteps in that respect, gaining a degree in the discipline, and a student's taste for rebellion. He was a dissident from a young age. He came from a family of Kresowiaks - "borderlanders" from the former Polish territories which were subsumed into the Soviet Union after the invasion of 1939 - and his father had vivid memories of the mass deportations that accompanied that very dark period in Polish history.

But young Stanislaw also had a notable talent for football, and was playing in the Polish first division at the tender age of 18. By 1976 he had graduated to the national side; no small feat in an era when Polish football was at its peak. He was that rarity, a footballer with a reputation as a genuine intellectual; in interviews, he would name-check James Joyce in between talking about the game. Apparently his footballing peers considered him a little, well, stuck-up. Not to mention disrespectful towards his elders. But no-one doubted his talent: a left-sided midfielder with superb ball control and a fine shot, he was being lined up as the replacement for the renowned Robert Gadocha. He was tipped to shine at the 1978 World Cup, along with other young Polish stars such as Zbigniew Boniek and Adam Nawalka.

Terlecki scored twice in the qualifying series for 1978, including a memorable goal against Cyprus. Moreover, the new Polish coach, Jacek Gmoch, believed that Terlecki's domination of the highly-rated Benfica fullback Artur was a decisive factor in Poland's crucial win away to Portugal in the qualifiers. Gmoch was well aware that he had a major talent on his hands...but a delicate flower as well. "You had to have a lot of patience with Stas. He liked to be listened to, you had to let him express his opinion. An intellectual, you know..."

Gmoch's patience eventually won the youngster's loyalty, and Terlecki was an integral part of the coach's plans for Argentina in 1978. But he missed out on the tournament itself - and thereby hangs a tale. A tale of the cockiness which went with Terlecki's rebellious nature, and which often got him into trouble.

Playing for his club side LKS Lodz in a late-season dead rubber against Polonia Bytom, Terlecki was, well, making life a misery for his hapless marker Czeslaw Brylka. Unfortunately, he decided to taunt the Bytom defender as well. Incensed, Brylka launched into a horrendous tackle which landed the 22-year-old Terlecki with a serious knee injury, and ended his hopes of going to Argentina. "I cried like a baby, like a boy who'd had his favourite toy taken away," recalled Terlecki many years later. "I'd sacrificed so much for that trip to the World Cup."

Terlecki recovered well from his injury, and quickly found his way back into the national side post-1978. But within a couple of years he was out of reckoning for the national team for good - thanks to his leading role in an infamous incident. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 2:02 PM 0 comments