American Soccer, from James Garfiled to the Break up of the Beatles

     The First Gilded Age

American soccer might have lost its wealthy schoolboy audience in the late 1800’s, but it had gained a new sort of company - that of the working class immigrants who flowed into the United States. These immigrants, most of whom came from Europe, brought with them a love of soccer and served as the new back bone of the game’s fanbase. Soccer could never become the nation's dominant sport without the support of American colleges, but it could keep its relevance in the select pockets of the country where there was a high enough population density to sustain amateur level activity. Soccer would survive at an amateur to semi-pro level from  the mid 1880’s to 1913 with occasional spikes in popularity accompanied by attempts to form national teams and championships - most of which ended in failure. The establishment of the USSF (United States Soccer Federation) and its original championship tournaments sent soccer’s national popularity skyrocketing.  The National Challenge Cup and the US Open Cup both debuted in 1914. The two tournaments were open to amateur, semi-pro, and  pro level teams from all across the country and made a strong enough impact over a two year span that in 1916 the United States fielded its first National Soccer Team. The team was recognized by FIFA, the world's largest international soccer association, and kicked off against Sweden for the first time, winning 3-2.  It then faced off against Norway which resulted in a 1-1 tie. Sadly, World War I put America's international soccer ventures on hold. 

                First U.S. Open Cup Trophy

With the founding of the ASL (American Soccer League) in 1921, American soccer had finally become big enough to be competitive with European teams on the field. The ASL was on par with the NFL in the 1920’s, with both sports seeing crowds of over 10,000 regularly. 

In 1922 the Dick, Kerr Ladies from England went on tour through the United States. The Ladies played four prestigious men’s ASL teams and went 1-1-2 overall, even beating one team, the New York Field Club, 8-4. 

    In 1924 the ASL refused to participate in the USSL’s National Open Challenge Cup, because the Open Cup was being held in the middle of the ASL team’s season. With the ASL owning the the most successful and well known teams in the United States such as the Holyoke Falcos and the New River Whalers, the USSL’s 1924-25 Open Cup was effectively ruined by these teams declining to participate. The ASL requested that the Open Cup be moved to the end of ASL season, and when the USSL refused, the ASL’s President, Bill Cunningham, ordered that any ASL team to participate in the National Open Challenge Cup was to be fined. This resulted in the ASL being suspended by the USSL. The ASL continued to operate as a rogue organization until it  died out in the early 1930.  It was quickly replaced by the ESL (Elite Soccer League) which consisted of many of the same teams as the ASL. This series of infighting events were later dubbed the “Soccer Wars”. 

As the Great Depression set in, soccer in America took a beating with many small clubs dying out as factories could no longer afford to field them, and attendance for big games, such as ESL matches, also plummeted. The U.S. was still able to field a respectable team for the 1934 Olympics in Italy-largely made up of regional players. The American men defeated Mexico (4-2), a game which they only had to play because they had entered the Olympics late that year. Unfortunately the U.S.’s good fortunes did not last and they lost to Italy in the first round, taking a thrashing of 1-7; with the only American goal being scored by Aldo Donelli - future Hall of Famer and best American player of the age.

Aldo Donelli in the 1934 Olympics

    World War II served as yet another bump in the road for the development of American soccer, with many of the nation's players leaving home to help in the war effort. By 1946, however, soccer along with most other sports was experiencing a mini-boom in popularity. The USSL picked up business as usual and hosted the 1946 National Challenge Cup in Chicago which was subsequently won by the Chicago Vikings. 

The year 1950 was a great one for American soccer with the U.S. National team defeating England (1-0) in the World Cup and the NCAA (National College Athletic Association) bringing varsity soccer back to colleges for the first time since 1880. 

The 1960’s brought with it an increased craving for spectator sports by the American public. Teams were more able to play cross country than ever before and fans were more able to watch.  This was thanks to the newly cheap accessibility of the television, now with good enough resolution to follow a sports game. Bill Cox, a major promoter of the time, saw the potential that soccer had to become as big a hit as baseball and football then were. He set about founding the ISL (International Soccer League). This was actually the second organization to use this name, with the first being a relative failure and dying out in the 1910’s. Bill Cox’s ISL consisted of a hodgepodge of regional ethnic teams, which although it made for some interesting matches, ultimately did not catch on in the U.S..

 It seemed that almost every sport was taking off in America in the 1960’s. The NFL-AFL merger and the first Super Bowl had just taken place.  Baseball was enjoying a steady rise in popularity, hockey viewership more than doubled, and the NBA was starting to take off.  All of this was happening over the span of just over a decade. It seemed only logical that soccer should be the next sport to attain real growth in America's booming economy, but it did not catch on with the adult fan base that never played the sport. Interestingly, the same adults that did not want to watch soccer, wanted their children to play it. Soccer was seen as an inexpensive and safe sport for kids and on September 15, 1964, the American Youth Soccer Organization took its first steps out into the world. As adult leagues in America stayed stagnant, popular only with immigrants, youth soccer thrived. Kids were loving the game and eventually those kids would grow up. 

                                Recommended Reading for this Post

• Litterer, David. “An Overview of American Soccer History.” A Historical Overview of American Soccer History, 21 May 2010, soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/overview.html. https://soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/overview.html

This is the most complete, well researched short article on the history of American male soccer that I have found. For the first post I am focusing primarily on the first two sections, which covers events from 1619-1880. This reading does spend a lot of time on college sports, but that is a good place to start looking for the history of most globally successful sports.

 My second article on this topic will discuss from 1880-1970, which will cover the next six sections of the reading. I will probably sight this text again in the future. I recommend reading as much of it as you like, it isn’t the most captivating read but it is full of alot of great general knowledge. 

American Soccer, from Jamestown to 1900

    A Surprisingly Strong Start

Soccer-like games have been played in various places around the world since the golden days of Rome. The United States was the first British colony to play any football-type activity.   Some style of pick-up football was played as long ago as 1609, brought to the U.S. by the settlers of Jamestown. The rules of the game are unknown, but the game probably resembled the mob games going on in England around the same time. They were likely some kind of mix between today's rugby and soccer and were probably fairly violent. Unlike the games taking place between towns in England, local leaders in the first American colonies were successful in suppressing these football mob games, and by 1620, had outlawed them effectively for over two centuries.

Pick-up football games surged in America in the late 1820’s, when Northeastern universities like Amherst, Brown, Princeton, and Harvard infused the games into college life. The first written account of association football being played in the U.S. was in 1827, when the freshman and sophomore classes at Harvard instituted an annual football game to take place on the first Monday of every school year. This annual event was evidently quite riotous, earning itself the nickname of “Bloody Monday”.  Princeton played something known as “ballown” in which the ball, originally rubber, was hit with the fist along with the foot toward the opposing team's goal.  Each school played its own style of football, much like their academic counterparts in England, with some schools, such as Harvard, favoring a dribbling style game and others, like Prineton, opting to handle the ball with their hands.  It worked fine for every school to play its own type of football because there was no inter-school competition in the U.S. at this point.

Bloody Monday, 1830

    The next major development in American soccer was the founding of the Oneida Boston Soccer Club in 1862, which was only five years after the pioneering official British clubs formed. The Oneida Club consisted of students from some of Boston’s most prestigious secondary institutions, such as Boston Latin and Boston English. The Oneida boys played collegiate level pickup teams, and went both undefeated and unscored upon in their first season; proof that practice and familiarity with one's own team makes all the difference in competition sport. It is unknown whether the Oneitas were playing rugby style or association football, but if they were playing association football, then they would be the first club soccer team to have arisen outside of England, even beating out the oldest Scottish clubs.

                                        Oneida Boys, 1862

College association football hit a wall with the start of the Civil War, but was brought back shortly after in 1866. The game was still not what modern people would call soccer, Princeton, for instance, played the game with 25 people on the field per a team. In 1869, the first intercollegiate game was held between Princeton and Rutgers (Rutgers won 6-4). The teams used London FA’s 1863 rules, which interestingly allowed for the handling of the ball. The rules provided that the first team to score six goals won.  This game was also recorded as the first North American modern football game as well.

  A conference was held between Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Rutgers in 1873. The meeting was held because football had become a popular enough college sport that the schools wanted to play one another. This had not been done up to this point because of the hodgepodge of conflicting rules each institution used. The universities agreed upon a set of rules, which differed quite a bit from the European rules of the time. Under the new rules, there would be 20 players per team, who could all carry the ball and the first team to achieve six points would win. This set of rules did not last long, as in 1880 Yale kicked-off against the Eton Players, from England, in the first Anglo-American soccer game ever. The Yale team lost 1-2, and was then persuaded by the Eton team to embrace the London FA rules. Yale went on to quickly and successfully persuade the other American colleges in their conference to adopt the FA rules as well. The soccer that these schools were now playing is the same game that is played across the globe today.

As Yale was busy endorsing London FA rule association football (soccer), Harvard was hard at work building up its rugby program. Both schools were proud of their own success at their game of choice, and keen to prove to the opposition that their school played the right kind of football. Parties from both Yale and Harvard met to set a compromised set of rules. There were to be 15 players per side, the ball could be handled or kicked, and either team could score via shot on goal or touch down. With Princeton students filling the audience, Harvard crushed Yale (4-0). It was such an embarrassing defeat that Yale agreed to switch to Harvard's new style of football, Princeton quickly followed suit. With the three most prominent institutions in the country all signed on to play Harvard's new American football, every other school jumped on the bandwagon. And with that, university american soccer fell into obscurity.

                           

  Harvard vs.Yale (4-0)

                                       

                                                Recommended Reading for this Post

                                           

• Litterer, David. “An Overview of American Soccer History.” A Historical Overview of American Soccer History, 21 May 2010, soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/overview.html. https://soccerhistoryusa.org/ASHA/overview.html

This is the most complete, well researched short article on the history of American male soccer that I have found. For the first post I am focusing primarily on the first two sections, which covers events from 1619-1880. This reading does spend a lot of time on college sports, but that is a good place to start looking for the history of most globally successful sports.

My second article on this topic will discuss from 1880-1970, which will cover the next six sections of the reading. I will probably sight this text again in the future. I recommend reading as much of it as you like, it isn’t the most captivating read but it is full of a lot of great general knowledge.