Last week, the Calgary Mustangs finally announced their stadium plans for the upcoming A-League season. The club made it official that they are moving into McMahon Stadium. The Mustangs will join the Syracuse Salty Dogs as the only other A-League club to play on the old version of Astroturf.
On the surface (no pun intended), this announcement sounds like sacrilege. It makes traditionalists groan and seems to imply that soccer is not moving forward on this continent. Does this move represent a regression to the NASL days, when most clubs played on Astroturf football fields? The comparison is fair, especially when McMahon itself was the home of the NASL Calgary Boomers a couple of decades ago. Can the game ever be taken seriously when played on such a field?
These points are all valid. However, there are limited options in Calgary when it comes to venues. The city has lacked a decent-sized natural grass venue since historic Mewata Stadium was demolished five years ago in favor of a skateboarding park. Though outdated, Mewata held about 5000, had a proper-sized natural grass pitch and appropriate lighting, and was located on the edge of the downtown core with easy access by road and mass transit. If the A-League would've come to Calgary a couple of years earlier, perhaps Mewata could've been saved. However, the location is no longer an option no matter how much soccer fans reminisce
Burns Stadium was contemplated as a potential location for the Mustangs for the 2004 season. The baseball park was the home of the AAA Calgary Cannons, who left the city after the 2002 season. Last year, two baseball clubs called Burns home. The Canadian Baseball League's Calgary Outlaws did not last the season when the league collapsed in July. The Calgary Dawgs of the Western Major Baseball League were the other club. The WMBL is very similar to soccer's PDL. It's a home for NCAA college scholarship players during the summer. The Dawgs had more success than the Outlaws and are returning for 2004. Their presence, combined with an outcry from the local baseball community, prevented any chance of the Mustangs moving into the 8000 seat venue.
What about Foothills Park, the home of the Calgary Storm for their two year A-League stint? Despite the obvious ownership issues with the Storm, the fact remains that without substantial renovations, Foothills Park is a completely inadequate stadium for a pro circuit and nobody is willing to foot the renovation bill.
Calling Foothills Park a stadium is a bit of a stretch. First and foremost, the pitch is not appropriate for a pro club. The official field dimensions were never published, but it clearly was much too narrow and too short to be taken seriously. When a keeper can throw the ball past the center line, you know the field is too short. The narrow field resulted in a lot of congestion, which produced a much less attractive brand of soccer.
Another major factor against Foothills Park is that it has no lights. This meant that games had to be over before sunset. Even during the long prairie summer nights, a match had to be underway by 6:30 at the latest. This made it very difficult for many to make it to a game on time on a weeknight.
Foothills Park is not exactly a "fan-friendly" stadium. Soccer purists would bemoan the presence of a running track and the distance of the stands to the pitch. But you don't have to be a hard core fan to realize that basic services like permanent washrooms, concession and merchandise facilities, and assigned seating were not available.
At a capacity of 35,000, McMahon is bigger than an A-League venue should be. The Astroturf with permanent football lines sewn in are also not a plus.
But the club does have a professional venue. The field size of 110 x 65 yards is a reasonable size for soccer. Lights will allow game times to be scheduled at a time when people can attend. Washrooms will be a blessing for every fan. Concessions and merchandise facilities should bring the club some revenue, and provide fans with a better option than last year, when the main food option was hot dogs grilled on a propane barbeque brought from someone's home.
The best feature of Foothills Park was its location. Since McMahon is literally across the parking lot from Foothills, this feature has been retained. The relatively central location, easy access to mass transit, and good road access makes this complex hard to beat.
Faced with limited options, the Mustangs have gone out on a limb and tried something different. McMahon Stadium is not an ideal situation, but it will give the Mustangs a chance to try some concepts that were not possible at Foothills Park. It's now up to the club to take the decision and go with it. They have tried to establish connections with the local soccer community, including giving members a season ticket discount. A ticket drive must now begin in earnest. There are a lot of seats available, so the club needs to look at doing some interesting promotions to bring casual fans to the game while not offending sports fans and soccer purists.
This change has been described as a short term solution. The club hopes to attract a decent fan base over a few years. During this time, they hope McMahon will be converted to a newer style of artificial surface, which is much more similar to grass. Who knows, maybe at some point in the future the club and the city would be willing to put up the cash to renovate an existing venue or build a new one?
The Seattle Sounders are one of the most successful A-League franchises both on and off the field. Through most of their history they played on an Astroturf football field. As much as Calgary fans don't like the general concept of Astroturf, most of them would accept it if the Mustangs could approach the Sounders model of longevity and providing quality soccer.
McMahon Stadium Facts:
Built: 1960
Capacity 35,967
Surface: Astroturf (installed 1999)
Owner: University of Calgary
Tenants: Calgary Stampeders (Canadian Football League), University of Calgary Dinosaurs football.
Major Events: location of opening and closing ceremonies of 1988 Winter Olympics, host of CFL Grey Cup championship in 1975, 1993, and 2000.
