He’s No Tiny Part of Socker Dynasty

A year ago at this time, the Sockers looked like a dynasty fallen. They had won indoor championships seven of the previous eight years, but that team looked like it was caught in a riptide and headed for the South Pacific. It couldn’t even see first place in its own division.

It was nothing short of miraculous that those Sockers managed to take a 25-27 regular season record and turn it into yet another championship. They became the hit of a party when they really shouldn’t have been invited.

However, that regular-season record seemed a harbinger of difficult times to come, especially when the goalkeeper Zoltan Toth and defenders George Fernandez and Ralph Black signed elsewhere in the off-season.

Obviously, the 1990-91 season would be a time of reckoning.

Darn right, it is.

The Sockers reckon they will win yet another indoor title. Friday night’s victory over Dallas gave them a 30-16 record, eight games better than they were at the same time last year.

Hello again, dynasty.

One very big reason for this surprising turnaround is one very little reason.

This reason’s name is Paul Dougherty.

“Ah,” said Brian Quinn. “The Midget.”

Quinn, star midfielder and assistant coach, had a twinkle in his Irish eyes. Dougherty is a guy who weighs a mere 130 pounds but stomachs a ton of abuse. It comes with standing only 5-feet-2 and looking more like Dennis the Menace than a professional athlete.

Dougherty has heard all the jokes about playing handball against a curb and getting out of the incubator in the sixth grade and being told to stand up when he was standing up.

“He’s fodder for practical jokes,” Quinn said, “but he gives as good as he gets.”

As Dougherty himself said when asked about the advantages of being small: “I get cheaper shoes. I buy them in a kiddie store.”

If you have seen the Sockers and looked closely, you have noticed Paul Dougherty. When the ball is rolling in a controlled way down the carpet and you can’t figure out why, look more closely. Dougherty will be there.

If you have played against the Sockers, you feel like you are in a house infested with fleas. No matter where you go, you keep getting bitten and you can’t figure out why.

Dougherty, you see, seems to be everywhere.

“A lot of players on this team are gifted,” he said. “They have a lot of flair. I’m not one of them. I just work hard. No frills, just hard work.”

Excuse me, Paul, but, ahem, you are selling yourself short.

Yes, he does work hard, but, no, he is not without gifts.

“He’s a typical British player,” said Ron Newman, the coach. “He wants to be involved in every play. He’s always all over the field. And he has a beautiful release, whether it’s a pass or a shot.”

That release is a gift.

“He has a good feel for the ball with a terrific release,” Quinn said. “He gets into position where he can use his strengths, and he has such a good first touch that he gets rid of the ball before anyone has a chance to get close to him.”

In that sense, he is a little like a mirage. The ball is there and then it’s gone. He might be more like Casper the Ghost than Dennis the Menace. Tackling Dougherty is like tackling a cloud.

In truth, Dougherty plays this game so well because he grew up, to use the expression loosely, playing this game. He was signed by Wolverhampton of the English First Division at the age of 15 and made the varsity at 17. The U.S. equivalent would be playing in the National Football League while getting a high school degree in the off-season.

At 20, he came to the colonies and joined the Sockers. He played for the 1987-88 and 1988-89 championship teams. The indoor game is actually a bit more physical because of the rough play along the boards and the unforgiving carpet, but he was adapting quite nicely. He was, in fact, voted the unsung hero of the 1989 championship series.

Suddenly, he didn’t fit. It had nothing to do with soccer or shoe size. The Sockers could not pay him what he had become worth because of indoor soccer’s salary cap. So Dougherty went to the Baltimore Blast for the 1989-90 season. It was a nice season, but the Sockers came along and won the championship series.

That was enough to make Dougherty give up crab cakes. Besides, with Toth and Fernandez gone, the Sockers had room under the salary cap for the little guy.

“He went back to England because he had a chance to play outdoor,” Newman said, “but I thought the homesickness would disappear in the cold weather. I talked to his mother and told her he was coming here, and that was the end of it.”

Thus, Paul Dougherty is back in San Diego, doing those things that help make good players into a better team. He is living proof you don’t have to stand 6-feet-10 or weigh 240 pounds to help carry a dynasty.