Sixty years ago my father was serving on board the U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mediterranean. In his day job he used a Babbage computer to calculate firing solutions. He was also on the ship soccer team. I thought I’d share a page from the ship’s newsletter, “PRESS-I-DENTIAL”, page 10, from May 1960.
FDR SPORTS REVIEW
Soccer Team Loses | 3; Improvement Shown
The ship’s soccer team has played three Greek teams so far. While not victorious, it has improved rapidly and looks forward to playing teams in France, Sicily and Italy.
The game of soccer ·is the national sport of every European country, consequently keen competition in encountered wherever the ship anchors. For this reason, a friendly match between the FDR and a team in any of the Med ports creates much good will and interest, and is responsible for making many friends.
Under the leadership of LTJG E. S. Gauld, the AIRLANT champs opened the 1960 season against a tough Greek naval team only to go down in defeat 8-3 . Particularly effective on defense were Meyer, Fronek, and Rupp, but offensively the team was not quite in condition to run the 120-yard long field for 90 minutes. MacZuga led the scoring punch booting a beautiful 20-yard goal.
The next two games saw the team play in Thessalonika, Greece . The first was with an excellent Antolia College team in the outskirts of the city and proved valuable experience for the FDR eleven . The team lost 9-1 making some glaring defensive errors . It could never get a satisfactory offense rolling, but it also must be taken into consideration that the team was playing for the second time this year against a very skillful eleven . The FDR’s only score was made by Don Perry, who charged in to boot one past the surprised Antolia goal tender .
The following day the team got together went over its mistakes of the previous game, and went on to play the farm school of Thessalonika. A change was initiated in defense be employing a three -man back field instead of the orthodox two.
Yeger at left , Gauld at center, and Meyer at right were kept busy repelling the farm school’s drives . But two penalty kicks and two costly defensive mistakes hurt the team. Larry Erhard played brilliantly in the goal for the ship and constantly drew cheers from the large crowd. MacZuga and company had ample opportunities tor shots but could not penetrate the Greek team’s defense. In retrospect, it was a hard and cleanly played game turning out 4-0 in favor of the farm school . But the FDR had shown vast improvement over its last two matches.
Indications are that some exciting games are coming up, especially in Palermo, where the team played before 5,000 last year. All are invited to come out and see the next game, which is guaranteed to be exciting.
