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Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck / PNG

It was 1979, September. The plane, a commercial jet, was subdued and quiet.

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The Vancouver Whitecaps were winging their way back from New York, where they had dispatched Franz Beckenbauer and the star-studded Cosmos in an epic NASL semifinal before taking down the Tampa Bay Rowdies in a historic Soccer Bowl performance.

Drinks had flowed as freely as the shaggy hairstyles so popular in 1979, but that was the night before. All that remained was the slight aftertaste of champagne and some mild headaches.

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Jack Leonard, the team’s communications manager, picked his way through the seats, handing out maps showing the parade route the team would take on their way downtown.

A 24-year-old Bob Lenarduzzi leaned over to his teammate Buzz Parsons and said, “Boy, wouldn’t it be embarrassing if no one showed up.”

“We knew the city was behind us, but I don’t think we knew how the whole of the city, the province, had rallied,” said Lenarduzzi, the Whitecaps president, who’s only slightly thicker now at 62 than the svelte player who tangled with the likes of global icons Pele and Beckenbauer.

“Coming through customs and out, and seeing this mass of people at the airport and thinking, ‘Well, this is great,’ then getting in the cars and driving downtown, to see the throngs of people, and culminating at Robson Square, was beyond my wildest dreams. I don’t know if there has been a reaction like that to a sports team in the city. It was a very special day.”

Estimates of the crowds that day range from 80 to 100,000 as fans lined the streets, packed parkades, hung out of windows, and climbed atop buses to get a look at the convoy of cars as the team returned to Vancouver as conquering heroes.