Sept 10 (1983)
The Soccer Park opens in Fenton as perhaps the first soccer-specific facility in the United States. Two days of celebrations are capped by the park’s inaugural game on Sept. 10 matching St. Louis University against the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Tom Hayes scores twice and adds an assist as the Billikens defeat UMSL, 3-1. Steve Maurer scores the Billikens’ other goal. Tom Olwig scores for UMSL on an assist by John O’Mara. Opening ceremonies started the night before with a $100-a-plate dinner headlined by entertainer Lou Rawls at Stouffer’s Riverfront Towers. The Soccer Park features five full-size fields and two practice fields. Construction spanned two years after the St. Louis Youth Soccer Association acquired the land from J.S. Alberici Construction Co. Anheuser-Busch executive and future U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer Denny Long helped recruit labor, much of it free, to complete the park. “Denny got the brewery to donate money for the Soccer Park project, but more importantly, he got the labor unions to donate labor to help put that place together,” Anheuser-Busch executive and former St. Louis Stars player Bruce Hudson tells Dave Lange in a 2010 interview. In another interview with Lange, Long says: “The main field at the park was patterned after one from a club team in Germany. Our engineers would meet in my conference room once a week and put the program together. A major part of the work out there was done by the unions, free at our request. It grew from one little soccer field to what it is now, not because SLYSA didn’t know what needed to be done, but they didn’t have the power of the brewery behind it.” The facility will be purchased and operated by Anheuser-Busch in 1985, and will be acquired by Jeff Cooper’s soccer operations in 2009. Following reports that the Soccer Park will be sold and converted to non-soccer use, World Wide Technoogy co-founder Jim Kavanaugh and WWT Chief Financial Officer Tom Strunk personally will finance St. Louis Scott-Gallahger Soccer Club’s $1.9 million purchase of the Soccer Park in July 2011. The park will be given to St. Louis Scott Gallagher, and continues today as World Wide Technology Soccer Park.