St. Louis Frogs
American soccer club
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The St. Louis Frogs were an American soccer club. The Frogs were owned by Giesler Sports Enterprises and given sanction to enter the American Soccer League's newly-formed Midwest Conference by the United States Soccer Football Association at the 1972, summer meetings in Anchorage. The team played only one season and was coached by Pete Traina, with Walter J. Giesler serving as general manager. Their colors were green and white, and they played their home matches at Giesler's Sports Village.[1]
Team name
In a newspaper interview Giesler stated that the team named stemmed from a cast iron frog that had been found during a remodeling of his sporting goods store. Construction workers told him that it was an old good luck tradition of contractors to place a frog of some sort inside a wall during construction. The frog wound up becoming a decoration on his desk. Originally he had wanted to call the team the Missouri Mules, but the name had already been taken. As he struggled to come up with an original name, he realized the answer was sitting right on his desk, and thus the St. Louis Frogs were born.[2]
Year-by-year
Final conference standings
| Midwest Conference | G | W | D | L | GF | GA | PTS |
| Cincinnati Comets | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 7 | 13 |
| Cleveland Stars | 8 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 23 | 10 | 6 |
| Detroit Mustangs | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 28 | 6 |
| Pittsburgh Canons | 8 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 18 | 5 |
| St. Louis Frogs | 8 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 16 | 4 |
| Chicago Americans* | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
*Chicago Americans played only a few games
Game-by-game
Friendly results
| Date | Opponent | Venue | Result | Goal scorers | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 12, 1972 | SV Falke-Steinfeld (West Germany) | H | 1–1 | Gary McBrady | [3] |
Regular season results
| Date | Opponent | Venue | Result | Goal scorers | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 15, 1972 | Cleavland Stars | A | 0–2 | – | [4] |
| July 22, 1972 | Pittsburgh Canons | A | 2–3 | Gary McBrady, Paul Pisani, Jim Niehoff | [5] |
| July 30, 1972 | Cincinnati Comets | H | 0–1 | – | [6] |
| August 12, 1972 | Cincinnati Comets | A | 3–0 | – | [7] |
| August 13, 1972 | Detroit Mustangs | A | 3–1 | Frank Fischer | [8] |
| August 20, 1972 | Cleavland Stars | H | 0–4 | – | [9] |
| August 27, 1972 | Pittsburgh Canons | H | 0–1 | – | [10] |
| September 4, 1972 | Detroit Mustangs | H | 9–0 | Mike Villa (2), Niehoff (2), McBrady (2), John Deinowski, Tom Beaver, Jack Blake |
[11] |