Now that the Big Game was behind us, our attention turned to making Stare Byki FC an honest- to-goodness soccer club. Our first order of business was deciding on a name. We decided to append "FC" (Football Club) to our original name in deference to tradition. Most soccer clubs have such a designation, although "SC" (Soccer Club) is more common in America, to avoid confusion with the helmet-and-pads game. The great game, however, is called football everywhere in the world (except the U.S. and Canada) and that was good enough for us.
I started to investigate possibilities for competition. I went on a massive letter-writing campaign and found out we might be biting off a little more than we could chew. Entry into the Metropolitan Soccer League, even at the lowest division, would require a $1000 performance bond to be paid up front. In addition, the club would have to be recognized as a not-for-profit organization by the State of Illinois and the team's board of directors had to be registered with the league. It was obvious that the Byki lacked the sophistication, not to mention the financial resources, to play at such a level.
We then considered playing indoor soccer. From an organizational standpoint, it was an ideal situation. We would pay a fee, and everything, namely the field, referee, balls, was taken care of. Even though most of us were pretty unfamiliar with the indoor style, we were hungry for any kind of competition. We settled on the Arlington Soccer Center (now called Soccer Enterprises) in Palatine.
At this time I was willing to continue my role as Team Manager, which in our case meant that I had to take care of everything. Every organization needs someone who will take charge to make sure things get done. One administrative job I wanted to get rid of, however, was that of coach. Being a player-coach is the worst job on any sports team. You not only have to prove to your teammates (as well as yourself) that you're good enough to play, you also have to correct their mistakes while you hope that they overlook yours. There has been more than one occasion when I have felt like a hypocrite. Instead of just having to worry about your own game (which for me is a considerable task), you have to worry about the way that twelve other guys are playing. And when they're not playing well, you have to figure what changes need to be made during the heat of a match. Being a player-coach prevents you from doing either job to the best of your ability.
We were fortunate to convince Mr. Frank Tomczyk to be our coach. Although he had no formal coaching experience, he had had a long association with soccer while growing up in Poland. My own conversations with him convinced me that his knowledge of the game would be a benefit to the team. He would be able to assess the merits of each player in an objective way. In any case, I was anxious to get out of the coaching business.
We continued playing informally on a twice-weekly basis, usually with enough players to play five or six on a side. We invited the best of the Smartkacze to play with us. This not only made us a better team technically, but decreased our average age. As time would go on, having young legs out there would take some of the burden off of the older players. Newcomers to the team in the fall of 1983 were Ed Pinkowski, Henry Zajac, and Mark Rys. We would have liked to have taken on Ted Piotrowski, but he went away to school. Rich Hass, Greg Bujwid and Chris Zadlo were aspiring players also, but had not yet turned 18 and since we defined the Byki as a men's club, they were only allowed to train with us. Greg Taraszkiewicz joined us at this time to compete with Les Jankiewicz for the goalkeeper position.
Among the original Byki, the following stayed on for further play: Stef Wiecek, Mark Sokolowski, Andy Wojtkowski, John Starkowski, Mark Klonowski and "Chops" Ciepiela. It doesn't take long to see that the club had a very strong Polish bias. In fact, every player on the team at that time but one (Taraszkiewicz) was connected to Harcerstwo. The club, as a result, wound up developing an unwritten rule limiting membership only to those of Polish extraction. This xenophobic attitude limited this edition of Stare Byki FC (as well as others in the future) from playing at its highest level. The rule's proponents claimed that winning games wasn't the reason they wanted to play with the Byki; playing side-by-side with their lifelong chums was reason enough. (Some of these morons even had reservations about letting the Smartkacze join us.) I knew that that hogwash would last until the first losing streak.
I will be the first to admit that I play soccer for the joy of playing. If your team plays well, the winning and losing usually take care of themselves. I knew full well that the motley collection of players we had on the roster for the Big Game would never cut it in a competitive situation against experienced opponents. It was obvious that we needed to raise our level of play. I suspect that the malcontents were afraid that their places on the squad were threatened by the intrusion of newcomers. If the whiners' soccer ability had been as great as their insecurity, then I doubt we would have had much of a problem at all. In the end, I didn't have many other options anyway; I didn't know any other soccer players besides these Polish friends. Bias against non-Poles on Stare Byki FC was only beginning.
As the last playable days of fall weather dwindled, things were slowly coming together for our league debut. Mr. Tomczyk (dubbed by the players as "Mr. T") also eagerly anticipated our first game. I had thought he would have driven us a little harder at practice, but his style was such that he let the players take care of things themselves on the field. He simply arranged how they would play together. During this time Corky managed to squeeze $100 worth of sponsorship money out his brother-in-law, who owned the Last Chance Saloon. We played that first season with Last Chance logo on the backs of our jerseys. We were definitely ready to go.
Our first league match was played on Wednesday November 10, 1983 at Arlington. Our opponents were the Wauconda Chiefs. (The Chiefs went on to bigger and better things; they won the league championship in the National Soccer League in 1987.) It was a hard-fought game all around, but the Chiefs came away 2-1 winners. We played with a decided lack of intelligence in this game and we adapted poorly to the indoor game. Indoor soccer has its own strategies and tactics, a fact which unfortunately escaped us. We had problems when we tried to play indoor soccer with an outdoor soccer mentality. We were, in effect, faced with learning a whole new game. The Chiefs didn't necessarily have more talent than we did; they just played the way the game was meant to be played. Our indoor soccer naivete would continue to work against us.
The nosedive continued with every game. We played an absolutely awful game against a Ukrainian team, losing 7-1. The Ukies were definitely more talented than we were, but our lack of coherence was appalling. Things got so bad that Stark had to break up a shoving match between Sokolowski and Wojtkowski. A bit of trivia: The Ukrainian goalie was Yaro Dachniwsky, who later tended goal semi-professionally with the Chicago Shoccers. Amid all the confusion, a few players came to the fore. Mark Sokolowski was quick to earn his reputation as a garbage man, scoring goals from the most ridiculously short distances. Mark, to his credit, was working his butt off to win the loose balls while many of his teammates imitated disinterested spectators. Mark's aggressiveness, however, ended his season prematurely when, while in pursuit of a loose ball in front of the goal, he sustained a broken ankle after colliding with the opposing keeper. Uncle George was a madman defender, not allowing any opponents to get around him. George was consistently outrunning players many years his junior. Greg turned in some outstanding performances in goal and kept us close in many games. Mr. T originally had Greg and Les alternate as goalkeepers, but scrapped that rotation at midseason and used Les as a field player. Les, who was all arms and legs, was really too lanky and lacked the reflexes for the quick indoor game.
We didn't chalk up our first victory until our fourth game, winning by a score of 3-1. The rest of the season was simply a roller coaster. We finished with a record of 2-4-2, which was good for sixth place in our eight-team division. Our first season was certainly a humbling experience, though much was learned. We not only had to learn how to play a new version of the great game, but we also had to learn how to play as a team.
I was not very satisfied with our playing facilities either. The boards surrounding the fields were made of flimsy particle board and there was very little glass present to keep the ball in play. I was even less satisfied with the officiating. Many of the referees wouldn't know the advantage rule if came up and bit them in the nose. In addition, many of these referees were in poor physical condition and oftentimes found themselves out of position when making a call. I can't blame the officials for our lousy performances, but I thought that the club was getting shortchanged for the kind of money we were paying.
The actual structure of the league was also pretty unfair. Since we were a brand new team, we signed up for the lowest possible level. Unfortunately, some of the competition was far beyond our capabilities. The Ukrainian team, for one, was head and shoulders above the rest of the clubs. Not surprisingly, they wound up undefeated and their goals against was in single digits. When I complained to the league organizer, Sandor Szabo, he said that he had never seen this team before and had no idea how good they were. When I asked whether he would force them to move into the next highest division, Szabo was noncommittal. It was obvious that he was more interested in taking their money (as well as anybody else's) than he was in giving every team a fair shot at being competitive. We decided that finding a new indoor soccer facility was our top priority.
Our inconsistency also made a shambles of Mr. Tomczyk's nerves. He wore his emotions on his sleeve during the games, and our every mistake made him reach down for yet another cigarette. He eventually resigned from the coaching position because the stress was too great. So deep ran his feelings that it was a long time before he could even come to one of our games as a spectator. It also appeared that I was the major cause of his consternation. I have to admit that I didn't play nearly as well as I should have, but I started to get the feeling that my every touch of the ball caused Mr. Tomczyk's blood pressure to rise. I recall the match (the seventh game of the campaign) where I scored my first indoor goal. We were making a line change as I intercepted a pass at our red line. Seeing open space, I began to dribble forward, only to hear Mr. T screaming (in Polish, of course), "Gorecki, get off the field!" But I couldn't leave so easily because I had a good run going. In fact, I wound up faking out four opponents and the keeper during my length-of- the-field run, at the end of which I calmly tapped the ball into the unguarded net. With every fake, Mr.Tomczyk's rantings had gotten louder and louder. As I walked back to the bench, I wondered what he was going to say to me. When I got there, our eyes met and Mr. T emitted a low grunt, as if to say, "Well, it's about time you scored a goal."
With this first disastrous season behind us, we decided to regroup. We made a concerted effort to better familiarize ourselves with our teammates. I then began the unenviable task of finding a new site to play indoor soccer. I also re-inherited the responsibility of running the ball club's entire operation.