FBM Founding Father - Rodney Marsh

It's important to remember that all revolutionary movements are built upon the work of visionaries before their own times. For Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and the rest of the colonial propagandists during America's War for Independence they could look to philosopher John Locke and other Enlightenment writers.

The Free Beer Movement is quite the same. The idea of the FBM didn't start with us (credit where credit is due) and it's a cold hard fact that beer and soccer were lovely bedfellows many moons ago.

Think Frankie Hejduk was the first ever to drink a beer with fans? Thought Clint Dempesy's commercial (and accompanying web game) with Cerveza Modelo was groundbreaking? While the Free Beer Movement is certainly impressed with the beer and soccer combos of today, Deuce is not the first to break the beer-barrier nor is our honorary FBM spokesperson the first to slam suds with supporters (say that three times fast).

Set the way-back machine to 1980 and meet Rodney March. He was a striker for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the original North American Soccer League and although Marsh is an Englishman we're taking him as one of our own. During the heyday of NASL he made over 100 appearances (from 1976-79... with a brief return to England and Fulham) for the Rowdies and scored 53 goals.

But what makes Marsh stand out in our mind is this spot for Miller Lite. It's all thing terrible (much like the Dempsey spot), but we're not going to spit at a commercial crossing beer and soccer. Here we've got fossilized (aka YouTube archives) evidence of beer and soccer history.

Drink in its glory:



There you have it, folks, FBM history unearthed. A FBM Founding Father.

More to come....


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