Dallas Tornado were the touring team who dodged bombings, riots, prostitutes, the Viet Cong and more while training with Real Madrid and facing the likes of Fenerbahce

David Moorcroft chuckles when he thinks of modern football tours. Where today's clubs jet across the globe to boost profit margins, his experience as captain of Dallas Tornado was markedly different. In a few months, he avoided bombings, riots, prostitutes, the Viet Cong and more.

Fifty years ago, his adventure began with a phone call.

'My dad woke me saying there was someone on the phone with a funny accent,' the Liverpudlian tells Sportsmail.

'He was asking if I wanted to play football around the world and ultimately in Texas, I thought it was a wind-up from one of my mates. But he invited me to the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool to sign up.'


Moorcroft was just 20 at the time. A handy centre-half who was with Everton as a youth and turned out professionally with Preston. He had just played at Wembley with Skelmersdale United in the 1967 FA Amateur Cup final, coached by Liverpool icon Ian St John. True to his word, he turned up at the hotel, but what he was about to embark on was a world away from the mud-splattered footballing education he had received in the North West.

'I arrive and this fella walks over wearing a denim suit and a cowboy hat! I'm thinking 'What's all this?' He turns to me and says 'I saw you play at Wembley and I want you in my team to tour the world.'

The double-denim clad eccentric was the Hungarian-Canadian, Bob 'Kap' Kapoustin. The promoter Lamar Hunt had appointed him as coach, tasked with assembling Dallas Tornado FC to compete in the North American Soccer League.

A poster for a Tornado game in Vietnam

A poster for a Tornado game in Vietnam

Moorcroft agreed, was made captain, and a few weeks later boarded his virgin flight, to meet his team-mates in Madrid. Two Dutch, two Swedes, five Norwegian, seven Englishmen and one American.

The tour schedule covered five continents, saw them visit 31 countries and play an astonishing 49 football matches, dwarfing modern-day itineraries.

And there was an accompanying team look. 'They insisted we looked like Texans,' he explains.

'We wore cowboy hats and blue blazers and were given crew cuts. It was the end of my Beatles bob and flares.'

First stop was training with Real Madrid and Ferenc Puskas, before playing a number of Spanish sides, then versus Fenerbahce in front of 50,000 in Turkey, and some sightseeing in Greece, Stetsons atop.

'We got delayed in Athens,' says Moorcroft. 'They could fly half of us out at once, and the other half later on.

'I put my foot down, saying we were a team and we travelled together.'

Moorcroft's resistance proved lucky, because their scheduled plane was blown up mid-air in an assassination attempt on a Greek-Cypriot politician. Sixty-six people died.

It was the first of a number of near-death experiences for Kap's men. The second came after a 14-hour round trip up a mountain in Iran during the crowning of the Shah, where they were spat upon after losing 1-0 in the final minute. When their bus reached Pakistan they were attacked after driving through a political rally, and they had to escape India under a cloak of darkness after rioting grounded all flights.

Lizard-infested rooms greeted them in Bangladesh - a country which Moorcroft describes as 'making Croxteth look like Buckingham Palace' - and there was more to come.

'The further east we went, the greater the anti-American sentiment,' he adds. 'There was a riot in Singapore where 25,000 spectators were shouting 'Go Home Yankee Imperialists' - but we only had one American in the team.

'The crowd were seething and their players were taking chunks out of us. One of our lads gave it back, and squared up to them. This Singaporean player then picked up the corner flag, brandishing it like a spear.

'The fans attacked us with missiles and the army had to rescue us from the centre circle before confining us to our dressing room for hours. They cancelled the second game over safety concerns!'

Some players returned to Europe through homesickness, over bust-ups with Kap and another caught hepatitis. Escaping Singapore alive and with diminishing numbers, the Tornado took what was their bravest turn yet. The next step? Vietnam.

War between the US and the communist state was raging and out strolls a football team wearing cowboy hats.

The Tornado players, pictured being introduced to dignitaries in Karachi, Pakistan

The Tornado players, pictured being introduced to dignitaries in Karachi, Pakistan

'As captain, I always met the dignitaries,' explains Moorcroft. 'At the American embassy this colonel greeted me by screeching: 'What the f*** do you think you're doing here? Which lunatic thought it would be good to play football in a war-zone?'

'Kap pipes up and manages to calm him down. We visited soldiers in a camp and a G.I. took us on a boat trip down the Mekong Delta. He says: 'Get down because the Viet Cong will shoot us' and jumps up with this machine gun firing randomly into the jungle. It was as frightening as the sound of the bombs going off all around.

And then came the matches - 35,000 for two games against Club Saigon and a Vietnamese U23 side.

'There were soldiers everywhere,' says Moorcroft. 'One of the flunkies at the American embassy told us: 'It would be as well gentlemen if you were to lose'.

'It was obvious the Vietnamese just wanted to beat us up and we drew both games.'

Luck smiled on the team again, as 45 days later the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive killing over 50,000 people.

Sushi for Christmas dinner in Japan followed. A brothel masquerading as a hotel was New Year's Eve accommodation in the Philippines. Then the long trek back to Dallas via Australia, New Zealand, Fiji in 40C heat, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Costa Rica and Honduras.

The tour quite literally took the wind out of the Tornado (they finished bottom and won just two of the next season's 32 games).

'It was the making of us though,' reflects Moorcroft. 'You don't get tours like that now. It was a university of life. I've still got my cowboy hat too.'