“The team was put together in a matter of weeks,” added Kamler, who went on to have a decade-long career in Major League Soccer, most notably with early league dynasty D.C. United. “I’ve never seen that before or since. After that first week, everyone was hanging out and like best of friends. It was really a unique thing that it happened so fast.”
One key to the quick chemistry, that rare tension that only special teams have, was the coach. The name Dennis Viollet carried a lot of weight in his native Manchester, England. He survived the Munich Air Disaster in 1958 and scored 179 goals in nine seasons with Manchester United. He played twice for England, scoring once.
“But he [Viollet] was the most unassuming figure you’d ever meet in you whole life. So quiet and so humble,” said Leigh Cowlishaw, the team’s English-born winger who went on to coach the Kickers for 19 seasons. Ukrop, current club Chairman and CEO, agreed: “[Viollet] was just an incredible gentleman. We didn’t even know it, but he was letting us learn on our own. He gave us the respect to find our own way.”
Competition Born in Training
Violett, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 65, may have been the quintessential English gentleman, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t let you know when you weren’t going about your business the right way.
“I remember once I missed a real sitter,” Ukrop said, his head shaking. “I was open at the far post and I just straight-up missed an easy chance. Next thing I know my number’s on the board and I’m out. It was a quiet message, Dennis didn’t say anything, but I got the point. I wasn’t living up to the standard he expected.”
Training sessions revolved around small-sided games. It wasn’t a lot of tactical work, and just one lung-busting fitness session on Monday mornings, “He let the game be the teacher,” said Cowlishaw, who stayed with the Kickers after 1995, playing 152 times before moving to the coaching ranks. “We did a lot of five-a-side and the competition was fierce in those little games. Everybody in that 1995 team was a winner.”
Chemistry was fostered off the field as well as on. These were young men in the prime of their lives. They were out of school and away from home for the first time. “We all lived together in the same apartment complex – the whole team – and we had a lot of fun that year,” said Causey, a future MLS goalkeeper who was given the nickname Tex by Bruce Arena during his UVA days.
“We all knew each other, either as teammates or opponents,” added Williams. “We had a lot of fun hanging around the pool in the complex where we all lived."
