Express to Make Last Stand of ’85 in Valley : Club Expected to Play Finale at Pierce College

Harry Usher, commissioner of the United States Football League, is expected to announce today that the Los Angeles Express will play its final 1985 home game in Woodland Hills.

The game, against the Arizona Outlaws June 15, will be moved from the Coliseum to a temporarily expanded Pierce College stadium. The San Fernando Valley facility accommodates only 5,000 fans, but 10,000 portable seats will be added for the USFL game.

Herb Vincent, Express public relations director, characterized the one-game move as a first step toward moving the team to the Valley. Said Vincent: “Harry Usher has decided to tackle the situation and go out there.”

The situation is a rapidly deteriorating one, with Express crowds dropping to a barely visible level in the 90,000-seat Coliseum. The last two announced home crowds have been below 5,000, lowering the season average to around 7,000. If the team is able to draw 15,000 at Pierce College, that would equal a season high, achieved March 31.

This will be the second visit of the Express to the Valley, an area containing more than 1.2 million people. The club played an exhibition game at Pierce in February and filled the 5,000 seats.

With the Express (3-10) losing fans as rapidly as it has been losing games and owners (the team doesn’t have one), there have been rumors of a move to the supposedly untapped population base of the Valley.

That plan makes even more sense since the USFL, a spring league for three years, announced plans to play its 1986 schedule in the fall. That would force the Express, unable to draw a crowd as the sole spring tenant of the Coliseum, to share its home field with the Raiders and USC in the fall.

The proposed June 15 move to Pierce might not come without a legal battle. The Express originally signed a 10-year agreement with the Coliseum. When this season began without an owner at the helm, the league signed a one-year letter of agreement to remain in the Coliseum. A one-game move to Pierce would violate that agreement and could trigger legal action by the Coliseum Commission. No member of the Coliseum Commission was available for comment Friday.

The June 15 game had a planned 5 p.m. kickoff, but that will probably be moved up to the early afternoon because of concern by Express officials over the lighting at Pierce.