UKROP ALMOST LEFT KICKERS FOR RHINOS ... 25 YEARS AGO
Keep asking … you might learn something, like … ROB UKROP , the Richmond Kickers career leader in goals (70) and assists (30), almost left the team for the Rochester Rhinos in 1999. “It was all worked out … I was going … I wanted to go,” Ukrop, now Kickers president and chairman said last week … At the time the Rhinos were a player’s best opportunity to move up to Major League Soccer which kicked off in 1996, the year after Richmond won the U.S. Open Cup … So what kept Ukrop, a former All-American at Davidson, from leaving for upstate New York? “Colin wouldn’t let me go,” he said ... COLIN CLARKE was Richmond coach for two seasons (1998-99), compiling a 38-18 record. The former Northern Ireland international, the fourth of seven coaches since the Kickers were founded in 1993, left to join the A-League’s San Diego Flash in a similar capacity … and was replaced by LEIGH COWLISHAW , lik...