Ethnic social clubs and soccer in Philadelphia

Ethnic social clubs have long been both the starting place and the sustainer of soccer in many communities in the United States. The place of ethnic social clubs in the history of soccer in Philadelphia is no different. English, Scottish and Irish clubs were the founders of soccer in Philadelphia and team names such as Albion, Caledonian and Hibernian reflected the ethnicity of the players. Other team names such Kensington Rovers and Philadelphia North End referenced the names of established teams back in the old country.

As immigration patterns changed, new ethnic groups formed new social clubs that soon fielded teams of their own. Ethnic German immigrants from the Danubian plains of Hungary founded the club that would become United German Hungarians, which can trace its origins to the Banater Artbeiter-Verein, founded in 1906.

The principal activity of the club, apart from providing companionship and community support for people with a shared culture, traditions and language, was the formation of Maennerchors, or male choral groups. In 1910, Banater Maennerchor, the original name of United German Hungarians, was formed with some 48 members. There club was located at Eighth and Columbia until 1923 when they moved to Second and Norris. In the harsh conditions of industrial Philadelphia, Banater Maennerchor and other similar groups would be important places for workers to gather and discuss the hardships of work without the taint of political agitation. In 1939 the club changed its name to United German Hungarians of Philadelphia and Vicinity. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll refer to the club as UGH.

First soccer team is formed

The 1924-1925 first team squad

Following the First World War, increasing numbers of German-speaking immigrants began to arrive in Philadelphia and brought with them their love of soccer, a sport which had rapidly spread throughout Europe from Britain in the years leading up to the war. Their love of the game proved infectious and from informal games at club picnics the desire to form a proper team soon took hold.

On December 10, 1922, a Sports Section was formed by the club and a soccer team soon followed with practices at Burholme Park in Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighborhood. Soon after, the team affiliated with the Football Association of Eastern Pennsylvania and District and was eligible for participating in exhibition games. In the fall of 1923 the team entered the Third Division of the league. The club’s 1972 booklet celebrating 50 years of soccer notes,

At the time there was a lot more body contact allowed, charging the goal tender was permissible, and these conditions were cause for many rough and hard-fought games. In the meantime the membership of the Sport Section had grown to around the four-hundred mark, and it was therefore necessary to form a Second Team in order to give more members an opportunity to play and at the same time develop players for the First Team.

Among those on the team was John Mayerfield, who would later serve as president of the Pennsylvania League, beginning a tradition of UGH playerswho also served the sport of soccer as administrators. That tradition would reach its height when Werner Fricker, captain of the 1965 United States Amateur Soccer Association Open Cup winning team, later became the head of the United States Soccer Federation from 1984 until 1990. During his tenure he led the successful US bid to host the 1994 World Cup.

In 1926 the club began to play its games at the grounds at Frankford and Robbins. That same year they traveled to Baltimore for their first game outside of Philadelphia to play the Baltimore Kickers, then considered one of the best German amateur soccer teams on the East Coast. UGH won a “moral victory” in the 1—1 draw “through desire and sheer aggressiveness.” Such spirit led to the club entering their First Team squad into the Second Division of the National League in 1927. The team made it through the first half of the season without being defeated to win “the first-half title.” In 1929 the team entered the First Division and also acquired a new field at Front and Olney.

Club and team grow

1931-1932 National League "First-Half" Championship team

The sport section of Banater Maennerchor had originally been called Banater Athletic Association but in 1930 changed its name to the German-Hungarian Sport Club. The experience of the First Team in the top flight of the league paid off when it won the league’s “first-half championship” in the 1931-1932 season, a feat repeated by the club’s Second Team in the league’s Third Division. In the 1931-1932 season UGH played Philadelphia Passon at Passon Field in Tacony in the first amateur night game in Philadelphia using portable lights mounted on a flatbed truck. They won 4–1.

In 1932 the First Team joined the Pennsylvania League, one of the top amateur leagues in the country, and during the 1932-1933 season the club moved to a new field at Rising Sun and Ella. All of the club’s soccer supporters pitched in to build a fence around the grounds in “a singular display of pride and solidarity,” making it the only enclosed pitch in the Pennsylvania League. That same year, the team played New York German Hungarians, a semi-professional team that played in the German American Soccer League, losing 4–1.

When the German cruiser Karlsruhe, the first German warship to visit the US since the end of the First World War, landed in Philadelphia in 1932, a picked-team of players from Philadelphia German clubs played the ship’s team, at the time the champions of the German navy. Three members of the UGH’s First Team played in this, the first international amateur friendly in Philadelphia since the Corinthians visited the city in 1911. The Philadelphia Germans “won the match quite handily.”

The First Team and its players weren’t the only one’s to perform well on the field. The Third Team won the Philadelphia Worker’s League title in 1936 and the Second Team won the North Philadelphia League championship in 1937.

Creation of Junior Section

Hoping to improve the quality of its teams, in 1935 the club hired James “Jimmy” Purvis, who had great success in Philadelphia playing for Fleisher Yarn (where he won the American Cup), Bethlehem Steel FC (21 goals in 22 games before a season ending injury) and Philadelphia FC, as player, coach and trainer. But perhaps more important was the formation of the club’s Junior Section for boys aged eight to twelve years old in on February 5, 1939. Realizing that many of the club’s players would soon be “called to the Colors,” some forward thinking club members realized that the “only hope for a good future in soccer rested on the development of very young players.”

The Junior Boys Section in 1942

By August enough players had joined this “midget” team to meet the experienced Lighthouse Midgets. Despite the game ending in a  5–0 loss, “there was no discouragement, but rather a sound realization that much practice, good physical condition and good sportsmanship were requisites for success in competitive sports.” Two of the men most involved in developing the club’s junior soccer program, Ted Kereczmann and Pete Noel, were instrumental in the formation of the “Midget” division of the Philadelphia Junior Soccer League.

By 1942 the demands on the Junior program, of which soccer was the most popular activity but also included basketball, wrestling and weight lifting as well as a Girls Section, were so great that Kereczmann was forced to make an impassioned plea for assistance from the club’s membership. “The immediate response was rather tepid,” but assistance soon came in the form of a Parents’ Organization. Nevertheless, the demands of the war meant a decline in participation in the Junior Section as young men were drafted or enlisted and parents were involved in the war effort.

Despite the decline in participation, the club still needed to field a team in order to maintain its league affiliation. In 1945 a team was entered into the the First Division of the Philadelphia Soccer League and played there for the rest of the 1940s without significant success. But a foundation built on the players of the Junior Section, along with returning servicemen and new immigrants from Europe, promised better things ahead.

Difficult post-war years

Along with the Philadelphia German Americans of the professional American Soccer League, UGH was a sponsor of the tour of Hamburg SC in 1950 and the picked team that faced them included several players from the club in the 5–0 loss. Other players were on the picked Philadelphia team that played Stuttgart Kickers in 1952 and lost 10–2.

UGH players and teams were doing much better against Philadelphia opposition. Having moved down to the Third Division of the Philadelphia League in 1951, they won the division championship and moved up to the Second Division instilled with greater confidence. On the team were players such as Johnny Jacoby and Matt Noel who were selected to tryout for the US Olympic team, as well as newly arrived immigrants. Still, the Korean War and the draft continued to draw off players and roster numbers declined. This, along with a serious funding crisis, resulted in the very real possibility that the club might not have enough players to field a team. An effective and persuasive recruiting effort resulted in enough players to field two teams. Among those recruited to play on the Second Team, which won the Second Division championship that year, was Werner Fricker, who had recently immigrated with his family to the US.

UGH players continued to represent Philadelphia in friendlies against visiting German teams such as Nuernberg, Kaiserslautern and Offenbacher Kickers. And while no trophies would be won in the 1950s, interest in playing was increasing, which lead to the formation of a third team for the 1957–1958 season.

The Golden Years

1965 USASA National Championship team. The team was captained by Werner Fricker, who later became president of the USSF.

In 1959 the United Soccer League of Pennsylvania was formed. It was at first an “outlaw” organization after it was refused recognition by the Eastern Pennsylvania and District soccer association, and thus by the governing body of US soccer. The league’s origins origins were in United Soccer, a group of German American sport and social clubs that promoted international friendlies. When recognition of the new league was granted in 1961, UGH missed winning the championship but only one point. They then proceeded to win the championship in each of the next six years. In between, in 1962, the club moved to its present location in Oakford, Bensalem Township.

The strong First Team, by now called the Major team, extended its winning record outside of league play when it won the Eastern United States Amateur Championship title, which led to an appearance in the 1963-1964 National Amateur Championship final against Schwaben AC of Chicago. Having played a grueling semifinal only the week before in Cleveland, UGH was unable to win the day: “The combination of fatigue and intense heat took its toll, and our boys succumbed 0:5 to a strong and superior Chicago team.”

From the moment the team landed back in Philadelphia, the club rallied around its team.

Naturally, it was a rather downhearted group which landed at Philadelphia International Airport after this disappointing loss, but the tremendous reception by Club members awaiting them upon their arrival quickly dispelled their gloom and instilled in them the determination to show their loyal supporters they had the ability and will to achieve a National Championship…Once the goal of a National Championship had been fixed, a rigorous period of training was established. Rain, snow and sleet were no deterrents. There was a goal to be reached and it could be attained only by strict adherence to rules and regulations.

The “Spartan-like” training regimen—aided by the installation of lights at the club’s field in 1963, the first for an amateur club in the Philadelphia area— paid off as “foe after foe was mowed down.” UGH faced Western US Amateur Champions St. Ambrose FC of St. Louis on June 27, 1965. In front of an overflow crowd, St. Louis was mowed down, too. The final was 6–0. The celebrations began early; UGH was up 5–0 at the half.

Capitalizing on the club’s national success, a program of international friendlies was begun against amateur teams from Germany, beginning in 1967 against Turngemeinde Heilbronn. UGH lost a close 1–0 game against the visitors bur fared better than the Philadelphia All-Star side, which lost 2–0. The following year, Tennis Borussia Berlin visited. In 1969 came TSV Meinaschaff and Phoenix Durmersheim, followed by Eintracht Lueneburg and Allemania Karisruhe in 1970, the same year that UGH once again reached the National Amateur Cup final, losing to Chicago Kickers. 1971 saw visits by Neustadt-Diespeck and TSV Ottobeuren. In 1972 the club hosted Falke-Steinfeld and FC Perlach.

Between the 1959-1960 and the 50th anniversary of soccer at UGH in 1972, the Major team had a remarkable record of 254 wins, 34 losses and 19 ties, winning ten league championships, nine Eastern District championships, three Eastern US Amateur Championships and one National amateur championship. Such success could not go unnoticed and the club drew the attention of the USSF. Three players—Arthur Jethon, Werner Fricker and Otto Brand—were variously selected for the US Pan-American and Olympic teams in 1963, 1964, and 1967.

The club continued to expand its youth soccer program, formalized as the Junior Soccer program in 1964. One of the Junior teams, the Junior Red Team for boys aged 15–18 years old, was the undefeated champion of the Inter-County League, which the team joined in 1965, for four consecutive years and was the Eastern Pennsylvania District Champion in the National Junior Cup.

Continuing national success

The impact at of UGH at the national level continued in 1977 when they appeared in the finals of both the National Amateur Cup and the US Open Cup. Although they lost both games, the first against Denver Kickers and the second against Maccabi of Los Angeles, appearing in two national finals in the same year was a considerable achievement. They reached the final of the US Open Cup again in 1993, losing 5–0  to CD Mexico of San Francisco. Meanwhile, a former UGH player would be central to the US successfully winning the bid to host the 1994 World Cup.

Werner Fricker

Werner Fricker, the captain of the 1965 National Amateur Cup winning team who had been joined the club in the 1952 recruitment drive soon after his family had emigrated to the US, had long served both the club and local and regional soccer organizations as an administrator. By the early 1980s, Fricker was a vice-president at the USSF where, in 1981, he had started the U-20 program.

When Colombia dropped out as host of the 1986 World Cup and then USSF president Gene Edwards refused to make a bid, the leadership of the then-faltering NASL turned to Fricker to organize a bid to replace Colombia. Though the bid was ultimately unsuccessful, Fricker’s leadership was recognized when he replaced Edwards to become president of the governing body of US soccer in 1984. Fricker would go on to successfully lead the bid to host the 1994 World Cup.

Along the way he initiated the program that insured that US national team players who were not affiliated with a professional team would have contracts with the USSF—personally guaranteeing the line of credit that financed the program. The program was instrumental in the successful campaign to qualify for the 1990 World Cup, the first appearance by the US since 1950. He also oversaw the formation of the US women’s national team in 1985 and the launch of the U-17 boys program. During his tenure, which ended in 1990, he laid the groundwork that turned the federation from insolvency to a successful business by signing the agreement with Soccer USA Partners. It is not an exaggeration to say that Fricker, who passed away in 2001, is the man who built the foundation of US Soccer’s present success. Fricker was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1992 and CONCACAF Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2002, USSF created the Werner Fricker Builder Award in his honor.

The club’s connection to the US National Team also includes Peter Vermes, who played in the 1990 World Cup and is currently the coach of Kansas City Wizards. Vermes played at the club in 1987, the year before he won his first cap for the US.

UGH closed out the 20th Century by winning the 1999 National Amateur Cup by defeating Detroit Arsenal. Now celebrating it’s 100th anniversary, the club will host the 2010 National Amateur Cup Final July 30 through July 31, having previously hosted the event in 1989, 1994, 2000 and 2004. The final will feature four women’s and twelve men’s teams in the Amateur, Open and Over 30 competitions. The chairman of the National Cup committee is Werner Fricker, Jr. UGH was only two games away from appearing in the tournament but lost on penalty kicks.

Photos courtesy of United German Hungarians.

From 1905 through 1970, Philadelphia was a regular stop when international teams–some of them national teams but most of them club teams—came to tour North America for a series of international friendlies. With the exception of the First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War, for many years Philadelphia-area soccer fans could see teams as storied as Atlante, Bari, Besiktas, Celtic, Charlton Athletic, Corinthian FC, Dundee, Dunfermline, Eintracht Franfurt, Hakoah All-Stars, Hamburg, Inter Milan, Kaiserslautern, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Nacional, Nottingham Forrest, Plymouth Argyle, Sheffield United, Sunderland, and Wolverhampton. Several years featured multiple friendlies sometimes within weeks of one another.

After 1974, Philadelphia would not play host to a friendly involving major international clubs until the first ticketed event at Lincoln Financial Field in, the 2003 match between Manchester United and Barcelona.

Beginning in 1919 and as late as 1964, Philadelphia teams also embarked on international tours of their own. With the exception of the newly formed training and recruiting tour of the Philadelphia Atoms in 1973, this would not be repeated until the Philadelphia Union traveled to Mexico for some warm-up games in the winter of 2010.

The first international friendlies

The international friendly has always been important in the history of football as a marker for the progression of the culture of soccer around the world. The first friendly, between Scotland and England at the West of Scotland Cricket ground in Patrick, Scotland—an area of Glasgow—took place on November 30, 1872. The match was seen by some 4,000 spectators and resulted in a 0–0 draw.

The first friendlies involving US teams were also the first friendlies to take place outside of Britain. In 1885 and 1886, the US and Canada one game each year. Though not recognized by the US Soccer Federation as having been full internationals, the Canadians won the first match 1–0 and the US won the second match 3–2. Both games took place in East Newark, New Jersey at Clark Field, the home grounds of the ONT club, one the great early clubs in the history of US Soccer.

The Pilgrims, 1909

The first international friendlies in Philadelphia

Affordable trans-Atlantic passage combined with a well developed local, regional and national rail system meant that international soccer teams could easily and profitably come to America by the turn of the 20th Century. In 1905, the Pilgrims, a club largely made up of gentleman amateur players first came to the US to teach North America how to play football properly. In that first tour, the Pilgrims scored 72 goals while conceding only seven, losing but one game out of twelve played over two months. In Philadelphia they faced a team of University of Pennsylvania students and alumni in front of 3,000 to 4,000 spectators at Franklin Field. The Pilgrims won 10–0. This process of a Philadelphia-picked team, rather than a longstanding club team, being destroyed by a touring team would be regularly repeated.

When the Pilgrims returned in 1909, they played three matches in Philadelphia. As described in an earlier PSP article, though two of the three matches resulted in victories for the Pilgrims, the Hibernian club of Kensington gave the Pilgrims their first loss of the 1909 tour. The Inquirer reported following the 1–0 victory that “there was great rejoicing in Kensington last night over the victory of the Irishmen, and the defeat of the tourists will give a great boost to local football.”

Those Johnny Appleseeds of English football, the Corinthians, first came to the US in 1906. They faced an All-Philadelphia XI on September 3, 1906 and defeated them 12–0 in front of some 7000 spectators. The Inquirer reported that while the home team “made the visitors hustle for their points”, the Philadelphia goalkeeper “was simply useless.” Apparently he wasn’t as clueless as the next Philadelphia keeper who faced the Corinthians. When the club returned to Philadelphia on September 19, 1911, the Corinthians won 19–0.

US National team and Bethlehem Steel FC travel to Scandinavia

Bethlehem Steel working out on board ship en route to Scandinavia

There were no international tours to the US after Corinthian FC’s visit in 1911 through the First World War. In 1916, the US was a neutral in the war and the United States Football Association, founded in 1913 and the original name of the United States Soccer Federation, organized a tour to Norway and Sweden. The US side featured several Philadelphia-area based players including C.H. Spaulding of Philadelphia Disston as well as Thomas Murray and Neil Clarke of Bethlehem Steel FC.

The tour opened with a 1–1 draw against a Stockholm all-star team. Their next match was the first officially recognized US international, played in front of 21,000 against a side picked by the Sweden Football Association. It was a tight match played in rainy conditions but the US won 3–2. The US would end the tour with a 3–1–2 record. When they beat a team of all-stars from Gothenburg 2–1, several US players were attacked by local fans during a pitch invasion after the final whistle.

Bethlehem Steel FC, arguably the greatest soccer team in the US for much of the 1910s and 1920s, traveled to Scandinavia in 1919 with a squad that included six guest players from other clubs, including the legendary Archie Stark. In the twenty year history of the club, Bethlehem Steel won nine league championships, six National Challenge Cups (the forerunner to the present US Open Cup) and six American Cups. The team played 14 games in Sweden and Denmark  between August and September 1919, and returned home with a record of seven wins, two losses and five draws. A tour to Scandinavia apparently was profitable enough for a handpicked St. Louis team to make the trip in 1920. Albert Blakey, who had been on the 1916 US team and the 1919 Bethlehem team, played for the St. Louis side as a guest.

Friendlies in Philadelphia before the Second World War

The formation of the American Soccer League (ASL) produced what has been called the Golden Age of US Soccer in the 1920s, with professional soccer drawing crowds in the tens of thousands and soccer being second only to baseball as the most popular professional team sport in the US. With a well organized and popular league covering much of the northeast of the US, the opportunities for international clubs to make money in the off season in front of large crowds were great. US clubs wouldn’t do so bad themselves.

The first international club team to make the trip to the US after the First World War was an All-Scotland team sponsored by the Third Lanark club of Glasgow in 1921. They played two matches against Philadelphia-area opposition, defeating Bethlehem Steel 8–1 on July 13 and the Philadelphia Field Club three days later 3–1.

In 1924, Corinthian FC returned to the US to play a five game tour in the first two weeks of September. Four of the five matches took place in Philadelphia. Corinthian defeated the Philadelphia Freebooters 8–1 in the first match on September 1. Four days later, Philadelphia SC secured a 1–1 draw. A team made up of players from the Philadelphia Cricket Club League lost 7–1 three days later. The last match of the tour was against Haverford College, who lost 3–0. Brooklyn Wanderers managed a 1–1 draw in between.

Hakoah All-Stars in 1925

In 1926, the Hakoah All-Stars—the all-Jewish team from Vienna—came to the US. Their match against against the New York Stars was attended by some 46,000 spectators, a record that would stand until the heady days of the New York Cosmos more than 40 years later. The last match of the tour was against the Philadelphia Field Club and was won by the visitors 3–0.

1927 would include the return of Hakoah All Stars as well as visits by Maccabi FC of Tel Aviv and Nacional of Uruguay. Hakoah opened its tour against Bethlehem and Philadelphia Stars, losing both matches by the score of 9–0 and 2–1 respectively. Hakoah got its revenge against Philadelphia Stars later in the tour when the beat them 7–1.

(Throughout the rest of this article, references will be made to “Philadelphia Stars.” This was not some forgotten, longstanding team but simply what the picked Philadelphia team that played the touring team was called. The squad was likely made up of a cross section of popular Philadelphia teams. While a selection of all-stars may have helped increase ticket sales, the team was unlikely to have much time to prepare for a match.)

Maccabi played a combined New York Giants/Bethlehem side in New York City early in their tour which resulted in a 1–1 draw. Later in Philadelphia they defeated the Philadelphia Stars 7–1. Nacional defeated Philadelphia 4–1.

An Italian all-star team made up of players from Bologna, Brescia, Genoa, Leghorn, Milan, Padoga, Rome and Turin toured the US in 1928. The Palestra Italia FC team defeated the Philadelphia Stars 8–3 the second game of the tour.

The first US tour by Celtic happened in 1931. Despite taking place in the depths of the Great Depression and the American Soccer Wars, the tour was a huge success with crowds at some venues being as large as 30,000. Quoting David Potter, the author of Willie Maley: The Man Who Made Celtic, David Wangerin writes that this was in some part due to the presence of so many Irish and Scottish exiles in the US, people who had been forced to flee their home countries after the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and the “Red Clydeside” labor disturbances at the end of the First World War and in the years immediately following: “To them, the visit of Celtic meant absolutely everything.”

After landing a day late due to poor weather at sea, the tour kicked off in Philadelphia against a team comprised of Eastern Pennsylvania amateurs, an “East Penn and District 1″ XI. Some 12,000 crowded into Frankford Stadium, home of the Frankford Yellow Jackets of the  National Football League. Celtic won 6–1. Said Celtic captain Jimmy McStay after the match, “we did not feel that we had to extend ourselves to the full.”

Audax SC of Chile came to the US in 1933. They defeated the Philadelphia Americans 8–3 on October 21st.

In 1935 the Scotland national team kicked off its North American tour in Philadelphia with a 3–0 victory over the Philadelphia German American team. The following year Maccabi returned to the US and played Philadelphia Passon twice over the course of the tour. Maccabi won the first match 1–0 but Passon won the return match 2–0.

Charlton Athletic became the first professional team from England to play in Philadelphia when they toured the US in 1937. Predictably, they beat the East Penn Stars 7–0 when they came to town on June 26. Aside from a brief tour by a rather weak Scottish national team (that actually included a Welshman and an Englishman on the roster) in 1939 which did not make a stop in Philadelphia, this would be the last tour by a European club in the United States until after Second World War.

Clubs from the Caribbean and Central America did tour the US during the early in the war. Just three months before the US entered the war in December of 1941, the Puentes Grandes club from Cuba toured the US, playing two matches against Philadelphia teams. On September 3, the match against the Philadelphia Nationals ended in a 2–2 draw. On September 15, the Philadelphia Americans lost 4–2. In 1942 the Mexican club Atlante FC lost to the Philadelphia Stars 3–2. It would be the last international friendly in Philadelphia until 1946.

Friendlies in Philadelphia following the Second World War: 1946-1960

The 1946-1947 Liverpool FC starting 11

The first international club team to travel the US after the Second World War was Liverpool FC, who toured the US from May 11 until June 12 of 1946. They played ten matches and won every one of them. Philadelphia enjoyed the distinction of suffering the biggest loss of the tour when they conceded 12 goals while scoring none on May 12. Liverpool would go on to win the 1946-47 League One title in England. In September, Puentes Grandes returned to the US where they beat Philadelphia Stars 1–0 on the last match of their tour.

In 1947, Hapoel FC of Tel Aviv toured the US and defeated Philadelphia Stars 1–0. The tour is noteworthy for being both the first coast-to-coast tour of the US by an international club and for featuring the first televised matches in US soccer history. Both the first match against New York Stars at Yankee Stadium and the last match against the American League Stars at Ebbets Field were televised. Hapoel won the first match 2–0 and lost the second by the same score.

1949 saw three international teams come through Philadelphia: Belfast Celtic, Inter Milan and the Scotland national team. On May 25, Belfast Celtic defeated the Philadelphia All-Stars 4–2. They then faced the Philadelphia Nationals on May 30. The Nationals would win the mini double—the ASL championship and the Lewis Cup (the league cup)–in 1949 and played the visitors to a 3–3 draw. The Philadelphia Stars would lose 4–2 to Inter on the last day of their tour and were walloped 8–1 by Scotland.

Manchester United came to the US for the first time in 1950. While they did not play in Philadelphia, a combined Kearny, New Jersey-Philadelphia all-star team played them at Randall’s Island on May 21. Four members of the Philadelphia Nationals and future Hall of Famers were on the Kearny-Philadelphia squad: Jack McIlvenny, Walter Bahr, Benny McLaughlin and Nick Kropfelder. After going down 1–0 to United on a goal from Jack Rowley, Paul Campbell equalized and Art Scheppel put the Kearney-Philadelphia team ahead. The Kearney-Philadelphia team was able to hold off United’s furious attack until John Aston equalized in the 89th minute. McIlvenny and Bahr would be part of the US team that defeated England in the 1950 World Cup little more than a month later. After the World Cup, McIlvenny left the Philadelphia Nationals to play for Manchester United.

Playing in Philadelphia in 1950 were Hamburg and Besiktas, the first German and Turkish teams to tour the US. Hamburg defeated Philadelphia All-Stars 5–0 on May 21, the same day as the Manchester United match in New York. Besiktas defeated Philadelphia Stars 7–1 on June 6.

Celtic FC in 1950-51

In 1951 Celtic returned to the US, and to Philadelphia, where they defeated Philadelphia Stars 6–2 on June 3. Walter Bahr, Tom Oliver and Len Owen of the Philadelphia Nationals and John Hughes and Bob Gormley of the Philadelphia Americans were part of the American League Stars team that traveled to Israel in October of 1951 for three matches. Their sole win came against a combined Hapoel-Haifa team on October 22 with a final score of 2–1.

1952 saw the return of Manchester United and the second visit by a German team, the Stuttgart Kickers. Philadelphia soccer fans could have seen two international friendlies in a week when Manchester United came to town on May 11 and Stuttgart visited on May the 18 as long as they didn’t mind seeing the Philadelphia Stars defeated by the combined score of 14–2.

An American League Stars team traveled to Guatemala in 1953 to participate in a three team tournament that included Palermo and Comunicaciones of Guatemala City. On the squad from Philadelphia were David Dick and Jack Huffin of the Philadelphia Nationals as well as Ed Emberger and Robert Gormley of the Philadelphia Americans. The American League Stars beat Comunicaciones 6–2 but lost twice to Palermo.

England’s Plymouth Argyle came to Philadelphia in 1954 as part of a tour and beat Philadelphia All-Stars 3–2. When Nuernberg and Sunderland visited in 1955, Nuernberg defeated Philadelphia All-Stars 8–5 and Sunderland defeated Uhrik Truckers 3–1. On the Nuernberg squad was Max Morlock, a member of the West German team that won the 1954 World Cup. Both the Germantown Cricket Club team and Uhrik Truckers traveled to Bermuda in 1954. Neither team won a match in their three game series and each finished with one draw and two losses. When Schwaben Augsberg came to Philadelphia as part of their 1956 tour, they beat Uhrik Truckers 4–0.

Another German team, Kaiserslautern, came to Philadelphia in 1957 where they defeated Phoenix Stars 10–1 in front of 9000 spectators. Hapoel returned also. Uhrik Truckers beat them 3–2 in front of 5000.

Manchester City kicked off their first US tour against a Uhrik Truckers/Ukrainian select team on May, 18, 1958. The visitors won 6–1. West German side Kickers Offenbach had played Philadelphia Stars seven days before. While the the result for that match (and a Offenbach match against Hartford) is not available, the recorded results of the other Offenbach’s matches on their tour show them winning against all opposition by a combined score of 17–3. It’s probably safe to assume that Philadelphia did not prevail.

Helsingborgs of Sweden visited Philadelphia as part of their 1959 tour. They faced Uhrik Truckers and defeated them 4–2.

Friendlies in Philadelphia: 1960–1970

The Ukrainian Nationals would play host to three international clubs in 1960, two club sides and one national team side. On February 13 they managed a respectable 2–2 draw with Austria. On May 21 they lost a close match with Third Lanark FC of Scotland 2–1. Facing Manchester United on June 12, the last day of United’s tour, the Nationals lost 10–0.

The Ukrainian Nationals again lost to Third Lanark 2–1 when the Scottish side returned in May of 1961. On June 4 the Philadelphia Ukrainians held Stuttgart Kickers to one goal in their loss, a dramatic improvement over the Philadelphia Stars 10–2 loss nine years earlier. More lopsided results would soon follow, however, when Baden Amateurs All-Stars came to town on June 18, 1961. They defeated Philadelphia Stars 12–1.

1962 saw three German sides and an English team come through Philadelphia. The Ukrainian Nationals lost 5–0 to the North German All-Star team and a combined “Ukes and United League” team lost 2–1 to Saarbruecken. Nuernberg defeated a Philadelphia United League select team 5–2. The Ukrainian Nationals were hosts to Sheffield United for the first match of their 1962 US tour and lost 4–1.

In 1963, the Ukrainian Nationals fought a close match with Wolverhampton Wanderers but lost 3–2. 1963 was also the first year that Philadelphia saw its first friendly between two international clubs when the West German sides Platting Sc and Karlsruher FV met on June 16. Platting won 2–1.

In 1964, two Philadelphia teams traveled abroad. The German Hungarians played nine matches in Germany where they recorded a record of one win, one draw and seven losses. The Ukrainian Nationals played four matches in Bermuda, winning all four. Lighthouse Boys Club faced the Irish Republic Juniors in Philadelphia, losing 6–1.

In 1965, the Ukrainian Nationals narrowly lost to Nottingham Forrest in Philadelphia by the score of 3–2. In 1967 they lost to Dundee 1–0. A match between Bavarian All-Stars and Philadelphia All-Stars was a wild 7–7 affair and Philadelphia German Hungarians had a close 1–0 loss to Heinbronn of West Germany while Philadelphia All-Stars lost 2–0. But, the scoring gap opened again when Dunfermline of Scotland beat the Ukrainian Nationals 7–1 in 1968.

1970 saw Italian side Bari beat Eintracht Frankfurt 1–0. The Philadelphia German Hungarians drew 3–3 with West German team 03 Lunenberg. The German Hungarians were unlucky against Karlsruher FV, losing 2-1.

Friendlies in Philadelphia: 1971 to the present

The rise of the North American Soccer League in the 1970s meant that international clubs were focused on playing NASL teams. Though the NASL’s first season was in 1968, Philadelphia didn’t get an NASL team until the Philadelphia Atoms were established in 1973.

The Atoms trained in England before the start of their first season and picked up several players there including three from Southport FC. They had a remarkable first season which included winning the NASL championship. Along the way they enjoyed a 1–0 victory over Mexico side Vera Cruz on June 24, 1973. This match wasn’t really a friendly because the NASL included the results in the league standings. The Atoms did play Ireland’s Finn Harps in a friendly in 1973, beating them 4–0 in front of some 10,000.

In 1974, the Atoms faced Universidade Honduras, beating them 7–0. They also played the Italian National Army team to a 2–2 draw. Perhaps the biggest friendly of 1974 featured the Atoms against the Soviet Red Army team, which the Atoms lost 6–3. The match, referred to as “the Big Bang of Indoor Soccer,” was a major impetus in the establishment of indoor soccer in the US. But by now, the Atoms fortunes were in decline and the team was disbanded after 1976. The Philadelphia Fury came to town in 1978 but they were gone to Montreal in 1981. (If anyone knows if the Fury hosted any friendlies, please let me know.)

Without a stable professional team, Philadelphia no longer was a destination for international clubs on tour. The same was true for much of the rest of the US, unless you were home to an NASL powerhouse like the New York Cosmos or the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Some top NASL teams embarked on tours of their own. Beginning in 1975, for example, the Cosmos began a succession of very successful international tours.

But with the demise of the NASL, even fewer friendly tours would occur. It wasn’t really until the inaugural season of the MLS that international clubs like Fiorentina, Feynoord, and Sporting Lisbon began to return to the US for friendlies with clubs in the new league. The 13 friendlies played between MLS teams in 1996 became 32 in 1997, dipped in 1998 and 1999, and began to pick up again in 2000. By 2001 a few MLS teams were beginning to travel abroad for tours of their own.

From the last friendly hosted by the Atoms in 1974, it would take 29 years for Philadelphia to reappear on the international soccer friendly map. When it did reappear it did so with a bang.

Lincoln Financial Field’s first ticketed event was a match between Manchester United and Barcelona on August 3, 2003. Some 68, 396 people attended the match, the last of the Championsworld Series which also featured Celtic, Boca Juniors, Juventus, Club America. Manchester United won 3–1.

The Union play Celtic in a Friendly. Photo by Niclae Stoian.

In 2004, more than 55,000 came out to see Celtic beat United 2–1 in a series of matches that included Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Roma, Porto, AC Milan and Galatasaray. Some 39,000 also watched AC Milan defeat Chelsea 3–2 that year.

Philadelphia would have to wait six years for its next international friendlies. On May 29, 2010, the US team defeated Turkey at Lincoln Financial Field in its last home match before leaving for the 2010 World Cup in front of more than 55,000 at Lincoln Financial Field. On July 14, the Philadelphia Union defeated Celtic at PPL Park after a stormy day threatened the cancellation of the match 1–0, becoming the first Philadelphia team to do so in three attempts. On Wednesday, July 21, the Philadelphia Union will host Manchester United at Lincoln Financial Field. Tickets are still available if you haven’t already gotten yours.

The site of the World Cup was in Europe for the first time when Italy was selected to be the host of the 1934 World Cup. David Goldblatt notes in The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, that “Like the Uruguayans in 1930 the Italian government was prepared to throw money at the event.”

But where Uruguay was anxious to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of independence from colonial rule, Benito Mussolini’s Italy was anxious to demonstrate the strength and superiority of fascism. As would become more clear at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, international sport was becoming a venue for political propaganda.

US soccer after the 1930 World Cup

With a squad of professionals strengthened by the experience of playing in the professional American Soccer League (ASL) in the 1920s, the US national team had surprised the soccer world by finishing third in the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay in 1930. But the toll taken by the American Soccer Wars leading up to the first World Cup was made worse by the trauma of the Great Depression and financial backing for the league withered away. While soccer had made great strides in widening its audience through the 1920s and for a time the ASL was second only to baseball as the most successful professional league in the United States, as David Wangerin writes in  Soccer in a Football World, “By 1933 the Depression had eroded much of the bedrock on which the game existed: the mills, factories, mines and other lodestones of immigrant labor.”

At the end of the spring season of 1933 the first ASL folded. While it was reestablished for the fall season of that year and would last until 1983, the league would never regain the level of success enjoyed by the first ASL and would be at best a semi-professional league. American soccer was entering in to a dark age.

The 1934 World Cup team

The management of the 1934 US World Cup team was distinctly Philadelphian. Team manager Elmer Schroeder had been born in the city and played soccer at the University of Pennsylvania when Penn was declared national collegiate champions in 1919 and 1920. Having managed the US team at the 1928 Olympics, Schroeder managed the Philadelphia German Americans team that won the National Amateur Cup in 1933 and 1934. He chose as the team’s coach David Gould, the Scottish immigrant who settled in Philadelphia and had played on the John A. Manz team that won the American Cup in 1897 and who later was an assistant coach at the University of Pennsylvania when Schroeder was there.

The 1934 US World Cup squad was chosen from a series of three tryout matches, with the first and third matches taking place in Philadelphia. In the first match on May 2, 1934, the US team beat the Pennsylvania League All-Stars 8-0. Two days later in Newark, New Jersey, the US side lost 4-0 to an ASL all-star team that included the legendary Archie Stark, who had not been selected for the US team. In the final match on May 5, the US beat the Eastern Pennsylvania All-Stars 2-0.

The squad of nineteen players included six amateur players from Pennsylvania. Five came from the Philadelphia German Americans,, including Peter Pietras, William Fiedler, Albert Harker, Herman Rapp and the captain of the team, Francis “Hun” Ryan, who had also played on the 1928 Olympic team. Only Pietras and Ryan would appear in the World Cup

Aldo "Buff" Donnelli

The fifth player, Aldo “Buff” Donnelli, had been born in Morgan, a town in western Pennsylvania. While attending Duquesne University, Donnelli played for his college’s American football team on Saturdays and played in amateur soccer leagues on Sundays. In 1929 he was on the Heidelberg FC team that won the National Amateur Cup. Donnelli was playing for the Curry Silver Tops in Pittsburgh when he received an invitation to tryout for the US team. He scored a hat trick in the first tryout game and would go on to score all of the US goals in the 1934 World Cup.

Also on the 1934 squad were veterans of the 1930 team including Jimmy Gallagher (Cleveland Slavia), Thomas Florie (Pawtucket Rangers), George Moorehouse and Billy Gonsalves (St. Louis Stix, Baer & Fuller).  Two other players came from St. Louis Stix, Baer & Fuller (winners of the US Challenge Cup 1933, 1934, 1935), three more from Pawtucket Rangers (runners up in 1934), and one each from the Chicago Wieboldt Wonder Bolts, Baltimore Canton, Brooklyn Celtic and the New York Americans.

The lead up to the 1934 World Cup

Just as the game of soccer had been hard hit by the Depression, so to had the United States Football Association. Because of its uncertain financial status, the USFA was late in submitting its application to compete in the 1934 World Cup. FIFA accepted the US application with the stipulation that the US would have to play a qualification game against the winner of the North American qualifying round of games, Mexico. The location of the qualification game would be in Rome at the Stadio Nazionale del Partito Nazionale Fascista, the National Stadium of the Fascist Party. One team would go home, the other would play in the World Cup.

The US arrived in Rome on May 14. The team had its first training session the next day playing baseball. They played soccer the next day. Aldo Donnelli remembers in Tony Cirino’s U.S. Soccer vs The World “that there was no effort to get to know one another’s playing styles:”

just practicing movements up in front like passing for forwards and crossovers from the outside men. It is not a real big practice because there is no defense moving and you don’t know where the heck to move and in those days we did not move like they do now. You played center forward, you would be a center forward. You had to make your opening from the defense as you could and you did not stay too far away from that one position.

Donnelli started the first scrimmage game the team played in Rome on the reserves side. At the half the reserves, filled out with three Roma players, were leading the first team 1-0. Donnelli was moved to the first team for the second half and ended up scoring the winning goal.

Donnelli was unknown to the professional players on the team and he had the impression that they were “disdainful of the amateur from the coal fields.” Donnelli said later, “There was a clique among the New York and St. Louis players and they wanted to keep me out of the lineup.” Recognizing Donnelli’s undeniable talent, Billy Gonsalves, the “Babe Ruth of American Soccer,” told Schroeder he would leave the team if Donnelli wasn’t on the starting roster against Mexico.

Qualification game against Mexico

When the US met Mexico on May 24 for the qualifying match, the sold out crowd included Mussolini and the American ambassador. Donnelli scored the first goal at the fifteen minute mark after receiving a long pass from the back. Mexico tied the game seven minutes later. Eight minutes after that Donnelli scored again to put the US up 2-1.

In the second half a Mexico player was ejected for trying to pull Donnelli down. With a one man advantage, the US and Donnelli pressed for control of the match. In the 73rd minute Donnelli had a breakaway to make the score 3-1. While Mexico managed to get a goal back, Donnelli got another himself and the match ended with the US winning 4-2. Donnelli was the first person to score four goals in a World Cup game.

The US team takes to the field in their match against Italy in the 1934 World Cup

The US v Italy

The 1934 World Cup was a single elimination tournament. Of the 32 teams that had applied to play, sixteen teams had qualified. Uruguay, host and winners of the first World Cup, declined to participate in protest of the several European countries which had declined to travel to South America. Only four of the sixteen countries that qualified – Brazil, Argentina, United States and Egypt – were from outside of Europe.

For its first match, the US had the misfortune to draw Italy. The Italian team had been completely revamped following a 4-2 defeat to the Austrian Wunderteam only three months earlier. Taking advantage of permissive FIFA regulations, the Italian coach, Vittorio Pozzo, constructed his new squad around a core of Argentinian players – the Rimpatriato – who could claim Italian heritage. Among those on the team were Raimondo Orsi, who had scored two goals playing for Argentina against the US in the 1928 Olympics, and Luisito Monti, who had been on the 1928 Olympic and 1930 World Cup squads for Argentina.

Mussolini and his son were in the sellout crowd at the Stadio Nazionale del PNF on May 27; the Italian papers made much of the fact that Mussolini had paid for the his own tickets. By the time Donnelli scored for the US with a shot from 20 yards out in the 57th minute, the Italians had already scored three goals, all of them coming  between the 20th and 30th minute. When the match ended with Giuseppe Meazza’s goal in the 90th minute, the Italians had scored another three goals in six minutes. The final score was 7-1 and the US was out of the World Cup. Italy would go on to win the World Cup, first beating Spain in two games after the first game was tied (and injuring at least four Spanish players along the way), next beating Austria 1-0 and then defeating Czechoslovakia in extra time in a match not without some controversy.

Billy Gonsalves told Soccer Monthly, “Losing to Italy was no disgrace. They went on to win the World Cup. We complimented ourselves on getting that one lonely goal against a team of that caliber, world class players from two world class soccer powers.” Donnelli described the Italy team as “probably the greatest international team in the world.”

After a short tour playing in Germany, the US team returned home. Several US players, notably Gonsalves and Donnelli, had received offers to play in Europe but, sensing the growing political tensions, both turned the offers down. While Gonsalves would continue to play soccer professionally, Donnelli returned to American football and eventually coached the Pittsburgh Steelers and the then Cleveland Rams.

Those political tensions would lead the US not to enter the qualification for the 1938 World Cup in Paris. The Second World War and its aftermath would put the World Cup on hold until 1950. Meanwhile, US soccer would find its self increasingly marginalized and dependent on an ethnic and immigrant fan base for its survival.

You can read about the US team at the 1930 World Cup here and here.

The 1934 World Cup

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Robert Millar

The second part in our series on the US at the World Cup continues our look at the first World Cup in 1930 where the Bert Patenaude scored the first hat trick in World Cup history and the US finished in third place. You can read more about US World Cup appearances in 1930 (part 1), 1934, 1950, the 1950-1990 drought, 1990, 1994, 1998 (part 1), 1998 (part 2), 2002 (part 1), 2002 (part2) and 2006.

The US team for the first World Cup was selected after three tryout games. While Wilfred Cummings, treasurer of the USFA since 1921 was the general manager of the team, the actual coaching was done by Robert Millar.

Millar had played for St. Mirren in Scotland before emigrating to the US. In the 1910s he played in Philadelphia for Tacony, Bethlehem Steel FC and Philadelphia Hibernian. He eventually became a player and coach in the ASL. During the American Soccer Wars he broke from the ASL saying, “You have not lived up to the terms of my contract, which call for me to play and manage under the rules and regulations of the United States Football Association, and by forcing me to engage in outlaw soccer, you are breaking my means of gaining a living.”

While sixteen players were selected for the US squad, the same starting eleven appeared in each of the World Cup matches. These included players from the ASL’s New York Nationals (Jimmy Douglas, Jimmy Gallagher, Bart McGhee), New York Giants (George Moorehouse, James Brown), Providence Clamdiggers (Andy Auld), Fall River Marksmen (Billy Gonsalves, Bert Patenaude), New Bedford Whalers (Tom Florie) as well as players from St. Louis’ Ben Millers team (Raphael Tracey) and Detroit’s Holley Carburetor (Alex Wood).

James Gentle

The only player selected from Philadelphia was also the only amateur on the team. James Gentle played for the Philadelphia Field Club though it seems his language skills were more important than his soccer skills as he was the only person in the American contingent fluent in Spanish.

After a thirteen day voyage by sea, the US squad arrived in Uruguay. During the voyage the team trainer, Jock Coll, had worked hard to maintain the players fitness. Aside from the obvious, this would prove important because the team had not played together before arriving at the World Cup.

The participating teams at the World Cup had been organized into four groups, with Group 1 containing four teams and the rest of he groups three teams. The US was in Group 4 along with Belgium and Paraguay.

The US versus Belgium

Bertram Patenaude (in white), against Belgium defender Nicholas Hoydonck. Patenaude would score the first hat trick in World Cup history four days later in a 3-0 victory over Paraguay.

The US faced Belgium on the first day of the tournament on July 13 at the Estadio Gran Parque Central. The field was wet and heavy after repeated rains and the first snow in Montevideo in five years began to fall as the team took to the field in white uniforms with blue and red horizontal stripes on their socks. For many of the US players, familiar with such conditions from playing during the winter in the Northeastern US in the ASL, it must have felt a bit like home.

In the first 30 minutes the Belgians, wearing red uniforms, pressed the Americans with several scoring opportunities. But the American goalie, Jimmy Douglas, made several spectacular saves. In the 40th minute, Bart McGhee passed to Billy Gonsalves who then banged a shot off the crossbar. McGhee finished the rebound and the US was up 1-0.

Just before halftime, Tom Florie made it 2-0 when the Belgians were caught ball watching: Bert Patenaude had intercepted a clearance by the Belgian defense which he then passed to Florie. The Belgians, waiting for an offside whistle, paused, leaving Florie alone in front of the Belgian goal. When the whistle didn’t come, Florie promptly put the ball in the net.

The US continued to attack in the second half, stopped only by some offsides calls, the crossbar and the post. Patenaude made it 3-0 when he received a chip from Brown. The Belgian goalie had left the line to challenge Brown and Patenaude headed the ball into an empty net.

The US versus Paraguay

Four days after defeating Belgium, the US faced Paraguay in front of a capacity crowd at the Estadio Gran Parque Central. After only ten minutes the US went up 1-0 when Patenaude converted a cross from Andy Auld. Just five minutes later Patenaude made it 2-0 when he beat the Paraguay keeper to a long ball from Raphael Tracey. The US, continuing to dominate in the second half, and made it 3-0 when, after a solo run on the left, Auld passed to Patenaude who shot from a few yards out to record the first hat trick in World Cup history.

The US had surprised many with the best record of the tournament coming out of the group stages, scoring six goals with none allowed, and were viewed as legitimate contenders for the world championship. One Argentinian commentator wrote,

They all are talented athletes who play a smooth game and use their bodies well although occasionally they commit fouls; they have a remarkable domination on high balls which can be paralleled only by the great British and especially Scottish professional teams, whose way of playing perhaps they follow, but without monotonous precision and with much more vitality and enthusiasm. The full backs get rid of the ball with power and assurance; the midfield line defends, mixing very well with the fullbacks and giving remarkable help to the forwards, who have a wonderful kick that they utilize for passes and for sending high balls in to the goal area to exploit their superior heading capacities.

With no British teams in the competition, the US would meet Argentina in the semifinals as a representative of the English soccer style. Tony Cirino writes in U.S. Soccer vs The World, “The U.S. – Argentina game – a replay of the 1928 Olympics – presented a contrast between two soccer schools: the short passing and polished skills of the South Americans and the athletic game in the air and long balls of the North Americans.” Argentina had defeated the US 11-2 at the Olympics.

The semifinals: The US versus Argentina

Back Row, from left to right: Bob Millar (manager), Jimmy Gallagher, Alexander Wood, Jimmy Douglas, George Moorhouse, Ralph Tracy, Andy Auld, Jack Coll (trainer). Front Row: Left to Right: Jim Brown, Billy Gonsalves, Bert Patenaude, Tom Florie, Bart McGhee.

The US took to the field at the newly completed Estadio Centenario on July 26, 1930, the home crowd favorites: every Uruguayan wanted the US to defeat the Argentinians. The dimensions of the field – 100 yards wide by 138 yards long – clearly rattled the US players and the US was unable to duplicate its performance in the previous two games. Within the first 20 minutes of the match a foul on US goalkeeper Douglas resulted in a twisted knee and a foul on Tracey injured his right leg. The pressure from the Argentinians grew.

In the 23rd minute, Argentina scored its first goal. The US fought back and the injured Tracey, who had actually broken his leg, missed two chances. Then the dam burst: between the 50th and 80th minute, Argentina scored four goals. The match became increasingly nasty and two minutes before time, Argentina scored a sixth goal. In the closing seconds of the match, Auld and Brown combine to pass the ball to Patenaude. Patenaude returned the ball to Brown who then scored the only US goal of the match. The US lost 6-1.

The US was hampered by injuries in an era when no substitutions were allowed and Millar blamed the Belgian referee for letting the Argentinians get away with dirty play. Billy Gonsalves, who has been referred to as “the Babe Ruth of American soccer,” called the game “murder” and said, “They crippled Douglas, deliberately, they broke Tracey’s leg, they hit Auld.” In the end they finished the match with only eight fit players on the pitch. Nevertheless, they had clearly been outclassed by a superior opponent and style of play.

The injury to Auld led to one of the great myths of World Cup history. When the team’s trainer, Jock Coll, entered the field to attend to Auld, legend has it that a bottle of chloroform in his medicine bag broke open, so incapacitating Coll that he had to be assisted off of the field. According to the match report written by Wilfred Cummings, “Andy Auld had his lip ripped wide open and one of the players from across the La Platte River had knocked the smelling salts out of Trainer Coll’s hand and into Andy’s eyes, temporarily blinding one of the outstanding “little stars” of the World’s Series.”

Whatever may have happened in the 1930 World Cup chloroform incident, the US finished third in the tournament when Uruguay beat Yugoslavia 6-1 in the other semifinal game. Uruguay would defeat Argentina 4-2 after being down 1-2 at the half to win the first World Cup.

After the 1930 World Cup

On the way back to the US, the team played a series of exhibition games. They lost their first two matches to the Uruguayan professional teams Central Park and Penarol. In Brazil they played Santos. After being down 3-1 at half time, the US battled back to win 4-3. While the team was in the dressing room after the match, the referee visited with an interpreter to explain “he had been shown the error of his ways and had disallowed one of the [goals] after the game was over, and the score officially would be 3-3.”

The team then played three more exhibition games in Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, and Botafogo, each of which was marked by “scandalously partisan refereeing.” In the six exhibition games they played in Uruguay and Brazil, a total of ten goals were disallowed for the US.

In the years after the first World Cup, many standard histories of the tournament tried to explain the unexpectedly fine performance of the US as resulting from the presence of six professional players imported from England and Scotland. As Roger Allaway explains in “The myth of British Pros on the 1930 U.S. team“, while there were six players from Britain on the team – five Scottish and one English – only one of them, George Moorhouse, had played with a professional team prior to coming to the US. His total professional experience in England? Two third division games. Of the six players in question, two did play professionally in England – James Brown with Manchester United, Brentford and Tottenham,  and Alexander Wood with Leicester City and Nottingham Forrest – but not until after the 1930 World Cup. The rest of the players continued their professional careers in the US, right where those careers had started.

The success of the US at the 1930 World Cup was no doubt related to the relatively weak field of competitors since so many European nations decided not to send teams to the tournament. But the team’s success was also attributable to the quality of the ASL throughout the 1920s. Should the US enjoy a strong performance in the 2010 World Cup, it will in no small part be a result of the impact of the MLS on US soccer.

Footage from the 1930 World Cup

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Mindful

Mindful of the rapid approach of the 2010 World Cup, the Philly Soccer Page begins a series looking back at each of the US team’s appearances in the tournament. We begin with a look at the background to the World Cup leading up to the inaugural tournament in 1930.

You can read more about US world Cup appearances in, 1930 (part 2), 1934, 1950, the 1950-1990 drought, 1990, 1994, 1998 (part 1), 1998 (part 2), 2002 (part 1), 2002 (part2) and 2006.

International soccer before FIFA and the World Cup

International soccer had been played at the Olympics beginning with the second games of the modern era in Paris in 1900. It was the first team sport allowed in the games, though for a time soccer featured at the games only as an exhibition sport.

The popularity of soccer in the Olympics led forward thinking people such as Robert Guerin to suggest the establishment of an organizing body to facilitate international play. At the time, the soccer nations of the world looked to England and the FA as the leading light of the game. When the FA proved to be slow in assuming the role of organizing world soccer, eight interested soccer associations from across Europe – Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and France -  took matters into their own hands and established FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association on May 21 1904.

The creation of the World Cup

At first, rather than organize its own championship, FIFA was content to let soccer at the Olympics represent the world championship. Following the First World War, however, disputes over the inclusion of amateur versus professional players led to a revival of Guerin’s original idea of an “open” world championship. FIFA secretary Henri Delaunay had said in 1926,

Today international football can no longer be held within the confines of the Olympics, and many countries where professionalism is now recognized and organized cannot any longer be represented there by their best players.

Following the success of soccer at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where it was the most popular sport, FIFA, led by Jules Rimet, moved to create the first World Cup, to be held in 1930. Because the World Cup would allow professional players to participate, the football associations of the British Isles, who still clung to the amateur idea in international competition, resigned from FIFA.

The five candidates to host the first World Cup were Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay. Uruguay, which had won the 1924 and 1928 Olympic gold medals and would be celebrating its 100th anniversary as a country in 1930 was selected as the host. That Uruguay offered to pay for the traveling and living expenses of each participating country and to build a new stadium surely helped.

The four countries that had not been selected to host the first World Cup refused to send teams to the tournament. Austria, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia also refused to send teams and for a time the relative lack of participation by European teams made it seem that the World Cup might be over before it had begun. Eventually, four European teams – Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia – made the trip to join Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the United States and host country Uruguay.

A quick look at the background to the US team: the ASL, the USFA and the American Soccer Wars

Soccer in the US at the time of the the first World Cup was recovering from a jurisdictional dispute led on the one side by the professional American Soccer League (ASL) and the United States Football Association (USFA), as the United States Soccer Federation was then known. This dispute is commonly referred to as the American Soccer War.

The formation of the first ASL in 1921 with teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League had resulted in professional teams backed by wealthy investors that could attract and pay for the best soccer talent in America. The league was also able to attract players from European leagues with offers of pay greater than what they could hope to earn at home as well as tours by top European clubs. For a time, the ASL was second only to Major League Baseball as the most popular professional sport in the US.

But the success of the ASL led to disputes with the governing body of US soccer, the USFA, over the status of international players who had broken contracts in their native countries to play in the ASL (despite the fact that the ASL appealed for assistance from the USFA when American players broke their contracts to play in Europe) and the sharing of profits from exhibition matches with foreign clubs with the association, some of which enjoyed attendance of 30,000 or more.

The ASL also took the view that participation in the US Challenge Cup (now known as the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup), which included both professional and amateur clubs, interfered with money-making ASL matches, and voted to no longer participate in the Cup competition. The view was not shared by all ASL clubs and some of the leading clubs, including Bethlehem Steel FC, decided to leave the ASL and, with the help of the USFA, formed the Eastern Professional Soccer League. When the ASL voted to suspended and fine the breakaway clubs, the USFA was forced to assert its authority over the American professional game and the USFA suspended the ASL. Soon other leagues, including the Southern New York Football Association, joined the ASL in challenging the USFA.

The position of the breakaway leagues led by the ASL began to be eroded when the Scottish FA, its stature at the time second perhaps only to the English FA, recognized the authority of the USFA as the preeminent authority of American soccer. Finally, in October, 1929, the various parties in the dispute were able to agree to recognize the authority of the USFA. But the damage to the professional game – along with the growing hardships of the Great Depression -  had been done: financial backers withdrew their support of clubs and foreign players returned to play in their home countries. The first ASL folded in 1933.

But the importance of the ASL to the 1930 US World Cup squad would be undeniable. The coach, Robert Millar, who had played for Tacony and Bethlehem Steel, the trainer, Jock Coll, and eleven of the players chosen for the US squad, came from ASL teams.

The Philadelphia Ball Park was eventually renamed the Baker Bowl after the were rebuilt following the August, 1894 fire. This undated aerial view gives a sense of how a soccer field would have fit into the stadium layout. Broad Street runs through the center of the picture. The Grandstand entrance is in the bottom center on Huntingdon Street.

This concludes the two-part series on the Philadelphia Phillies short-lived soccer team of 1894. You can read the first part here.

With the first ALPF season fast approaching, the Philadelphia Phillies played a picked eleven at the Philadelphia Ball Park on October 1, winning 3–0, although it is unclear who exactly picked the eleven. They then beat Philadelphia Wanderers 3–1 the next day.

Such promising beginnings came to a halt with the start of the season. Facing the New York Giants in the opening game on October 6, the Phillies lost 5–0. A second game played against the Giants on October 9 was lost by the Phillies, 5–2

The American Association Philadelphia team met the Newark team at Stenton, Wayne Junction on Saturday, October 13, the same day and time that the Phillies played the Washington Senators at the Philadelphia Base Ball Park.

I have not been able to find attendance figures for either of these games but it seems likely that the Phillies would have drawn fewer spectators than the American Association Philadelphia team: the possible spectacle of watching a few professional baseball players playing soccer aside, soccer fans would probably have preferred to watch known players who had so well represented their city on the All-Philadelphia team in past amateur matches.

Still, the Inquirer was optimistic about the prospects of the ALPF. Though soccer had been played in Philadelphia for years, the Inquirer reported on October 14, 1984 that the game had “been patronized mostly by men who played on the other side of the Atlantic;” with the formation of the ALPF “it looks as if the game would soon become popular with the masses.”

There is sufficient rough play to add zest to the sport and the kicking and the “head play” combined with sprinting are features which cannot help but interest. Most of the players are Englishmen and Irishmen and some have been imported. As soon as they become better known to the public much more interest will be added to the game.

Whether the Phillies would in fact become popular with the masses remained to be seen.

The 1891 Phillies. Charlie Reilly is first row, second from the left and Sam Thompson is next to him, third from the left.

The Phillies won their first league match on October 15^th, beating the Washington Senators 4–0, having lost to them in their first encounter 2–1. Among the Phillies on the field that day were at least two members of the baseball team, Charlie Reilly and future Hall of Famer Sam Thompson. Known as “Princeton Charlie” after his place of birth, it is possible that as a child Reilly had watched or played the rough and tumble soccer-style football which had before the advent of American gridiron football been popular at Princeton, which had been an early center of collegiate soccer. If so, that might help to explain why he was “ejected from the field for wrestling.” The game that day was also notable for the apparent use of substitutions, a practice that would not become generally allowed in soccer until the second half of the Twentieth Century. In the event, Reilly seems to be the only Phillies baseball player to have played in every Phillies soccer game.

The Phillies were beaten by Boston, 5–2 in front of four hundred spectators on October 20th, a very poor showing for a Saturday match when one considers that a match in Baltimore against Washington drew four thousand spectators only two days before. As David Wangerin writes in Soccer in a Football World, “Baseball champions in 1894, the Orioles had taken the trouble of hiring a bona fide soccer coach, AW Stewart, who doubled as the team’s goalkeeper.” Only five hundred people showed up in Baltimore on October 23^rd to watch the Orioles trounce the Phillies 6–1, in what proved to be the last game of the ALPF.

After all of the hope and hype for the prospects of America’s first professional soccer league, the ALPF had collapsed after only 18 days. While the ALPF cited the “late period at which this association got underway and the difficulty of avoiding conflict with the regular college football games” as the reasons for the cessation of the league, poor planning, bad scheduling of games, a growing scandal about the use of foreign players in Baltimore (Stewart had imported players from Manchester City and Sheffield United), and the distraction caused by rumors about the formation of a rival professional baseball league are more likely causes.

With the exception of some very large crowds in Baltimore, attendance had been dismal throughout the league. The largest crowd for a Phillies game was reported as “525” for the Philadelphia vs. Boston game, although the Philadelphia Inquirer match report for that game puts the attendance at “about four hundred.”

The Phillies weren’t making money on the road either: the Inquirer reported that the Phillies had received $9.22 for two games in Brooklyn and $60 for two games in Washington, ridiculously low figures when one considers that the entrance fee for matches was 25 cents, half of what it cost at the time to see a professional baseball game.

Crowds gathering at the Grand Stand entrance of the Baker Bowl for a baseball game. The photograph is undated but probably from before the First World World.

The ALPF said the league would “reorganize on somewhat different lines” for the 1895 season and the Baltimore and Washington teams seemed particularly keen to continue but the league was finished. Despite the 2–7 record of the Phillies in league play, the abysmal attendance figures and the general evidence that he would best stick to baseball and leave soccer to those with some experience with the game, Irwin said he planned to “organize a strong team of local players to play at Philadelphia Ball Park on Saturdays.” At least he now seemed aware of the potential for soccer’s working class fan base to come to see a soccer game if only most games were scheduled for a time when they could attend. In the end, the ALPF and Irwin’s plans faded into history.

Meanwhile, the other professional Philadelphia team continued to play. On October 27^th they met Pennsylvania Association Football Union champions Philadelphia Athletic at Stenton, Wayne Junction. “After a great deal of dickering and badgering,” Irwin took up a challenge offered by Clement Beecroft, manager of the American Association Philadelphia team, to play for $100 a side and the title of champions of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, I can find no record of the match or even confirm that it happened. No doubt Beecroft’s Philadelphia team would have destroyed Irwin’s Phillies. On October 11 the Philadelphia team defeated a Paterson, New Jersey team 7–2 at Wayne Junction, continuing their dominance of all opposition.

On November 24^th, the Philadelphia team had a role in helping to restart college soccer when they played the newly organized Princeton team at Stenton, Wayne Junction. Princeton lost 7–1. (I diverge from standard history here as most sources suggest that it was the Philadelphia Phillies who played Princeton in this historic match. However, I believe that, along with the fact that the match was played at Stenton rather than Philadelphia Park, a close examination of the Philadelphia team roster for this game as published in the Philadelphia Inquirer match report of November 25, 1894 confirms that the side was made up of players from the American Association team organized by Beecroft. The Inquirer game report for the match refers to the team as “the crack Philadelphia eleven,” hardly the term for the Phillies team, whose APFL record was 2-7-0. I am continuing to research this and welcome information about possible sources.)

Bleacher seats at the left field foul line at the Baker Bowl. The date of the photograph is not known.

Named after a local brewer, the Philadelphia team became the John A. Manz team in 1895 and proved to be unstoppable against local opposition. In 1897 Manz (who are frequently and erroneously referred to as “Manx” in many sources) won the American Cup.

Philadelphia’s baseball grounds would continue to be used for soccer in the off season. The Philadelphia Ball Park, eventually renamed the Baker Bowl, would be the home grounds of several Philadelphia soccer teams in the American Soccer League (ASL). As Wangerin notes, it was but  one of several “decaying major league baseball parks” used by teams in the ASL. Perhaps most notable team to play at the Baker Bowl was the Philadelphia Field Club, an incarnation of Bethlehem Steel FC, the most dominant soccer team in America in the first half of the Twentieth Century. The Baker Bowl was torn down in 1950.

The Phillies left the Baker Bowl in 1938 to share Shibe Park with the Athletics until they left town in 1954. Shibe Park was eventually renamed Connie Mack Stadium and it was the home of the Phillies until Veterans Stadium opened in 1971. Veterans Stadium would be the home of the NASL champion Philadelphia Atoms and later the Philadelphia Fury. If you drive around the city today, pickup and league soccer games in the outfields of the city’s baseball and softball fields are a familiar sight.

“3-D” Tour of the Baker Bowl

Click here to view the embedded video.

Many of the city’s earliest soccer clubs played their matches at now long gone baseball grounds around the city. To mention just a few of the more historic parks, Jefferson Park (North 25th and Jefferson Streets and once the home of the Athletics and also known as the Athletic Base Ball Grounds), the Philadelphia Base Ball Park (Broad Street and Huntingdon Avenue, once home to the Phillies and later renamed the Baker Bowl) and Forepaugh Park (Broad and Dauphin Streets and once the home of the Athletics and the Quakers) were all sites of important matches in the early days of soccer in Philadelphia. The owners of these grounds were happy for the chance to make money in the off-season and early soccer clubs benefited from playing at established venues.

Arthur Irwin found fame as a shortstop with the Philadelphia Phillies, the Washington Nationals and the Boston Reds before becoming a manager.

One of those important early matches was an inter-city meeting between an All-Philadelphia team and the Cosmopolitans of New York on February 22, 1894. Reports at the time say the match drew 1500 spectators. Among those in the crowd was Arthur Irwin, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. Two days after the match (which ended in a 3-3 draw), Irwin, described in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a warm admirer of association football,” announced a “scheme” to have “a league of association football clubs composed of professional base ball men, and to have Brooklyn, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia as the six cities in the circuit,” with games to be played in the winter to “enable the ball players to keep in good condition for their season’s work.” Irwin planned to bring up his “scheme” at an upcoming meeting of “baseball magnates” in New York.

When the two teams met again on March 24, 1894 in a match won by Philadelphia 4-0, Irwin was again in the crowd of some 2000 spectators. With him were the English-born Harry Wright, former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies and a future Hall of Famer, and two Phillies players, Charlie Reilly and future Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty.

Irwin’s “scheme” for a professional football league came to fruition on June 19, 1894 with the announcement of the formation of the American League of Professional Football Clubs, with Irwin as temporary president of the league. The Inquirer reported,

The object of the league is to play football games in each of the represented cities from October 1 until January 1. Each city will be represented by the strongest players that can be secured. Home talent will be given the preference. The American Association Football rules of ’94 will govern all contests . . . The Philadelphia Club has already engaged seven players.

The first professional soccer league in America had been formed and the Philadelphia Phillies were at the start of it.

A meeting in New York on August 14 formalized the establishment of the league under the name of the American League of Professional Football Players (ALPF) and adopted a constitution “built on the same lines as that of the National Base Ball League, but not . . . so bulky” with Irwin the elected president.

As Steve Holroyd describes, the ALPF owners “were anxious to impose the same monopolistic conditions” they enjoyed in baseball. With the retention of the “reserve clause” in ALPF player contracts—which would remain in effect in baseball until the advent of free agency in 1976— players were potentially “little more than chattel to the owners,” (a point recently made by the MLS Players Union during CBA negotiations with the MLS).

While Irwin had said in February that the purpose of the league was to keep baseball players “in good condition” it is obvious that the main purpose was to make money by using otherwise empty baseball stadiums in the off-season. Irwin may have had a further incentive to make some extra money for the Phillies: on August 6, the Philadelphia Base Ball Park, the Phillies’ home park, burnt almost entirely to the ground. Only the exterior outfield wall remained intact and for the rest of the baseball season spectators were seated in temporary stands.

Illustration from the front page of the August 7, 1894 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer showing the aftermath of the Philadelphia Base Ball Park fire.

Still, as David Goldblatt notes in The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, “the commitment and seriousness of the baseball franchises was questionable:” most games were scheduled on weekdays rather than on the weekend, when most of the potential working class audience would have been able to attend.

The insistence that each team play with the same name as its baseball counterpart, the hiring of baseball team managers to coach the soccer franchise, and stories which suggested that favorite baseball players would play on the soccer teams further reveal that the clubs were primarily interested in promoting their baseball teams in the off season, had doubts about soccer’s potential as a profitable draw in itself, or both. Interestingly, in England some professional soccer clubs were attempting to introduce baseball. As reported in The April 21 1894 edition of Harper’s Weekly, the idea was “to enable club-managers to come out nearer even, pecuniarily speaking, by keeping their players remunerative in summer, after the football season is over and ‘gates’ are of the past.”

The ALPF was greeted with suspicion in soccer circles and the American Football Association went so far as to bar any player who signed an ALPF contract from participating in any AFA-sanctioned event. In Philadelphia, a rival professional team “of the American Association” was organized by Clement Beecroft, who had helped to found Philadelphia’s first organized amateur league, in 1889. Made up of players who had been part of earlier all-Philadelphia teams, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that this team played the “first professional game of association football . . . in this city” on September 29, 1894 at the Tioga Athletic grounds, defeating Trenton 11–1 in front of about a thousand spectators.

Part 2 will appear on Thursday.

On the face of it, the article seems quite authoritative. It was written by Frank Dell’Appa, a respected writer, is in a respected newspaper, and is full of quotes from “local attorney Steve Gans.” Gans seems to be an authoritative source with a sharp memory of the NASL team of the  time, the Boston Tea Men. He says, for example,

In 1977 and ’78, NASL teams had a lot of success and were getting TV contracts. The league had momentum and teams like the Tea Men were getting 30,000 [at Foxboro Stadium] going head to head with a Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway.

“Then, the first TV game they had on Channel 4, [the Tea Men] used replacement players against the Philadelphia Fury. There was a crowd of 400 rattling around at Veterans Stadium, which tells you the quality wasn’t good.

Gans’ authority as a source is underscored by his apparent history with soccer. In college at the time of the strike, Gans says that he was approached by the Tea Men to be a scab player during the NASL strike, which he refused to do. A few decades later Gans “offered to organize an alternative players union in an attempt to reach a settlement” during the protracted legal proceedings surrounding the Fraser et al v. Major League Soccer case which challenged the league’s single entity status.

The article certainly paints a gloomy picture. Not only does Gans intimate that the NFL Players Association’s funding of both the NASL strike and the Fraser case means they are trying to scuttle a growing competitor, he unequivocally states that “Of all the things that led to the NASL’s demise, that [strike] was one of the top five things.” Who could blame the more pessimistic or less informed among us for drawing the conclusion that dark historical forces means that a strike by MLS players will result in the death of the MLS? I fancy myself something of a soccer history fan and the article freaked me out.

But it turns out that the Boston Globe article is littered with factual errors. That Dell’Appa has to state that the official attendance figure for the Fury/Team Men match was actually 3,291 and not 400 should have been reason enough for him to be skeptical about what Gans has to say. Here are a few more errors, pointed out in a recent post on kenn.com by Kenn Tomasch: the Boston Tea Men did not exist in 1977. While the Tea Men did get 30,000 spectators for a game against the Cosmos in 1978, the Red Sox were in Chicago that day. In the 1978 season the Tea Men never had a home game that went up against a Red Sox/Yankees game. Of the assertion by Gans that the 1979 strike was one of the top five reasons the NASL folded, Tomasch simply says “Bollocks.” (More on that later.)

The Boston Globe article was widely cited on the web. With this in mind, a look back at the events surrounding the NASL strike is warranted. What follows is a review of the history of the 1979 strike with some thoughts about how it compares with the current situation between MLS and the Players Union.

Just what were the issues that led to the strike in 1979?

The reason the players went on strike in 1979 was simply because the NASL owners refused to recognize the North American Soccer League Players Association (NASLPA).

The owners continued to refuse to recognize the NASLPA even after being ordered to do so by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Arguing that financial disparities among the league’s clubs would make a league-wide labor agreement impossible, the owners wanted negotiations to be made on a club-by-club basis.

The NASLPA gambled that a strike would force the owners to recognize the players association more quickly than a protracted legal battle. After 252-113 vote by the players, the strike officially began on Friday, April 13, 1979. The next day the head of the NASLPA, Ed Garvey, told the Washington Post that the strike could be settled “as soon as management comes to the bargaining table. It won’t cost them a dime. There’s only one issue involved, recognition of the union.”

This is clearly not the case with the current labor dispute.

By the way, Ed Garvey was also executive director of the National Football League Players Association, a position he held from 1971 through 1983. This turns the suggestion by Gans that NFLPA support of the NASLPA suggests some kind of ominous conspiracy into ridiculous famcy.

Money had nothing to do with the NASL strike?

Wage disparity was a reason why, in August 1977, 93% of the players voted in favor of forming a union but it wasn’t why the union went on strike. Garvey described raising minimum wage levels in the league as a long term goal and not as a reason for the strike.

When MLS players and fans talk about the issue of wages today, the issue is generally one of MLS players being paid poorly compared to players in other leagues around the world. For many foreign players, particularly those from Britain, playing in the NASL would have meant a rise in pay versus what they would have earned back home.

In 1979 the the wage disparity issue also wasn’t conceived of as soccer players compared to other professional athletes in the United States and Canada. Although higher wages were certainly desired, players generally recognized that both the sport and the league were growing and that it was unrealistic to expect wages on level with MLB or the NFL.

Rather, in 1979 wage disparity was primarily an issue of what American players were paid compared to what foreign players were paid.

At the time of the strike, Americans made up 45% of the players in the league’s 24 teams and earned on average approximately $12,000 a year. Foreign players earned on average approximately $20,000 a year. Using a historical currency converter, this works out to about $36,000 a year for American players and $60,000 for foreign players.

Using figures from the MLS Players Union, Sports Illustrated reports that the average salary for a MLS player at the beginning of last season was $147,945. Because the average is skewed by the high salaries of a few select players, SI rightly suggests that the median income of $88,000 is perhaps more representative. Unfortunately, I cannot find a median income figure for NASL players in 1979 to compare their wages with those of MLS players but it may be true that most MLS players are comparatively better off than their NASL counterparts. That said, since a median income of $88,000 still means that half of the players in the MLS make less than that, perhaps it would be wise to take Kasey Keller’s assertion that a strike will not be about money with a grain of salt.

What happened during the strike?

The 1979 strike was an unmitigated disaster.

The league scheduled a full slate of games with teams taking whatever steps necessary to fill open roster slots. The three Canadian teams in the league - Edmonton Drillers, Toronto Blizzard and Vancouver Whitecaps - were prohibited from striking by Canadian law. At least six U.S. teams – Chicago Sting, Philadelphia Fury, New York Cosmos, San Jose Earthquakes, Tampa Bay Rowdies and Tulsa Roughnecks – fielded full strength teams of regulars. The remaining teams had varying degrees of strike participation with as little as one Los Angeles Aztec player and as many as seventeen Portland Timbers players refusing to play. (See the very excellent review of what happened over the strike weekend at kenn.com.)

On Tuesday April 17, 1979, NASLPA leaders as well as representatives from Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Washington Diplomats and Rochester Lancers met with the Cosmos to try to convince them to honor the strike. After all, the Cosmos were the league’s showcase club.

The Cosmos remained unconvinced.

Prior to the strike Garvey and the union had interpreted then current immigration law to mean that any foreign player who crossed the picket line would be subject to deportation. For a brief period it seemed that Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agreed, not that this seems to have prevented foreign players from playing. When INS announced that it would not deport foreign players on the same day that NASLPA representatives were meeting with the Cosmos, the strike was finished. Not only had the NASLPA demonstrated that it lacked effective leverage with the league, the INS announcement meant that it had no leverage over the league’s marquee players.

The NASLPA officially ended the strike the next day. In all only 143 players honored the strike, which had lasted only five days. The NASLPA had gambled and lost.

What happened with the NASLPA next?

On May 4, 1979, the Washington Post reported that the NLRB had ordered team owners to bargain in good faith with the NASLPA, finding that the owners had engaged in unfair labor practices since October of 1978 when they refused to recognize the players’ union.

The owners appealed.

On March 26, 1980, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Court of Appeals had found that “the league and its 24 member clubs were joint employers and that a collective bargaining agent for all players on the U.S. clubs was appropriate,” thus upholding the original decision of the NLRB.

The owners appealed again.

On November 20, 1980, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Labor and the INS were refusing certify NASL indoor players or approve visa applications for Canadian indoor teams to enter the U.S. pending a finding of the NLRB.

Finally, in the May 7, 1984, issue of Sports Illustrated, it was reported that a collective bargaining agreement had been reached. A main component of the agreement was a $825,000 maximum payroll per year for each club, to be achieved by mandatory annual 10% reductions. Howard Samuels, president of the NASL said “The National Basketball Association has a salary cap system based on a percentage of team revenues, but, for the first time in America, this is a total cap . . . and one day, even though this was forced on us, all of American pro sport will thank us.”

The agreement was too little too late – the league folded that year.

Why did the NASL fold?

It wasn’t the strike.

Tomasch makes the very appropriate argument that the reasons the NASL folded are several. Over-rapid expansion, lack of infrastructure (not one team played in its own, purpose built soccer stadium, little player development of U.S. players), ill-equipped or ill-prepared owners who thought they could make a quick buck from “America’s sport of the ’80’s), the rise of indoor soccer (this at a time when attempts to “Americanize” soccer were rampant) and competition from MILS, and the “Cosmos-effect,” which anyone who has seen Once In a Lifetime will be familiar with, are all good candidates for a top five list. Add to this list the over reliance on foreign players and the effect of FIFA not naming the U.S. the host country for the 1986 World Cup and you begin to have an even more complete list.

Did the strike negatively effect the development of the league?

No.

In the year of the strike, the NASL saw its highest season attendance average. This was topped in 1980. But after 1980, the league began to fall apart. Here’s Tomasch again,

The real beginning of the end was at the end of the 1980 season, when Rochester, Houston and Washington folded (the Dips having been abandoned by MSG) and Philadelphia, Memphis, New England (having lost Lipton Tea’s ownership) and Detroit (which became the new Diplomats in DC) moved. Within a year, they’d also lost Atlanta, Washington, Minnesota, Dallas, Los Angeles, California and Calgary [or two thirds of the 1978 expansion class] and it was all over but the shouting. The NASL was a dead man walking its last two years.

From a league high of 24 teams, the NASL entered the 1984 season with only nine teams. This had everything to do with profitability and nothing to do with the strike of 1979. If the strike had been a significant cause of the end of the NASL, wouldn’t it make sense that more of us would know about it?

Which isn’t to say that a players strike now wouldn’t harm both the MLS or the growth of soccer in America. But one should be careful about drawing conclusions about the potential MLS strike from the history of the NASL strike. While the strike is an important event in the history of both the NASL and soccer in America, its relevance to the current negotiations between the MLS and Players Union is limited. There are plenty of reasons to worry and be pessismistic today without reference to a five day strike that is little remembered.

At the beginning of the 1909-1910 Pennsylvania League season, Kensington’s Hibernians, the reining league champs, seemed a sure bet to repeat as champions. But the Tacony team had other ideas. Led by what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “the splendid half-back line” of team captain Hector McDonald, former Scotland junior international Robert Morrison, and Percy Potts, the Tacony team defeated the Hibs 2-0 on October 23, 1909. The Hibs would prove their resilience when they gave the visiting English team The Pilgrims the first loss of their 1909 tour a few days later, but Tacony would never look back in league play and would dethrone the Hibs as champs. Along the way they would also win the American Cup.

After a great burst of soccer in Philadelphia in the early 1890s, the late 1890s and early 1900s were a time of little growth and some retreat. The reason for this was the severe economic depression that swept through industrial America in the mid 1890s. The immigrant English, Irish and Scottish neighborhoods of Philadelphia that had been instrumental in establishing the city’s first leagues were particularly hard hit by the economic crisis. Clubs and leagues folded as their members faced the more pressing concerns of daily existence in a depression. In view of the mass wave of patriotism that accompanied the lead up to the Spanish American War in 1898 and the widespread questioning of British motives and policy in the Boer War of  1899-1902, the identification of soccer as a sport of British immigrants was also a factor. In the first instance, many native-born Americans refused to support a “foreign” sport while, in the second, many were scornful of supporting a “British” sport.

By the middle of the first decade of the Twentieth century, such sentiments were becoming eclipsed and a new soccer boom was burgeoning. Improving living conditions arrived with rising employment so that factory workers might have the means and opportunity to chose their leisure. That the native-born children of immigrant families were playing soccer, often enough through the efforts of organizations such as the Lighthouse as well as  ethnic social clubs, helped to make it more of an “American” activity.

The game also enjoyed increasing support by elite sections of Philadelphia society. The Associated Cricket Clubs League was thriving, the establishment of teams at local universities was growing, newspaper coverage was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and workplace-based soccer teams were sponsored by Philadelphia industrialists. By the end of the first decade of the new century, the city had at least five leagues and scores of teams. That the Public Schools Athletic League was ready to adopt the game, the Fairmount Park Commission to allow soccer to be played in its parks and the Playgrounds Association to equip the city’s playgrounds with goals were all further indications of how soccer was entering Philadelphia’s athletic mainstream .

Tacony was a workplace-based team, supported by the Disston Athletic Association, which was itself a project of the Disston Saw Works for its employees. Founded by the English-born Henry Disston in 1850 as the Keystone Saw Works, by the 1870s the Disston Saw Works were on their way to being the largest saw making facility in the world.

Henry Disston was an exemplar of Victorian utopianism: he believed that he had an obligation to improve the lives of his workers and their families. He supported the construction of homes for his employees and provided the financial infrastructure for employees to purchase them. The company also funded the construction of a meeting hall, a library and a music hall. Though he died in 1878, his heirs shared his philosophy, a philosophy which helped to guide the early development of what is now the Tacony section of Philadelphia.

The Tacony team would be known by a variety of names throughout their history – Philadelphia Tacony, Tacony F.C., Tacony Disston, and Philadelphia Disston – but their nickname would always be “The Sawmakers.” By 1910 Tacony had been playing in the Pennsylvania League for five years. Their debut game in the Pennsylvania League had been against Albion, who would be the eventual winners of that year’s league championship. Tacony gave the Philadelphia soccer community a glimpse of what was to come when they played Albion off the pitch.

A record 29 teams entered the American Cup competition of 1909-1910. The competition, founded by the American Football Association, the first non-league soccer governing body in America, had first been held in 1885. After being abandoned in 1899, the competition had been revived in 1905. Philadelphia was well represented in the 1909-1910 cup series with four teams making it to the second round of sixteen teams. Hibernians and Corinthians both failed to advance to the next round, the Hibs thanks to a 2-0 loss to Jersey AC, Corinthians when they lost 1-3 to Paterson Rangers. Thistle forfeited when, after two drawn games, they refused to travel Massachusetts to play the Fall River Rovers for a replay.

Tacony faced East Newark’s Celtic FC at home in the second round on December 11, 1909 with only ten men: outside right John Plant had missed his train from Trenton. The Philadelphia Inquirer described the game in its match report the next day as “one of the roughest played on the local grounds this season,” with the Celtics “adopting foul tactics” when they realized the game was lost, with one player even going so far as to strike “the Tacony linesman” when he called the ball out of play. Despite being shorthanded, the fast Tacony side won the game 3-1 by employing a “great combination game.”

In the next round Tacony faced the Paterson Rangers, who played in the semi-professional National Association Foot Ball League, away. The Philadelphia Inquirer match report of March 7, 1910 described Tacony as playing “classy ball,”  and as being “superior at all points of the game,” so proving themselves “in the front rank as being one of the best soccer teams in the country.” Inside left Thomas Hyslop, a former Scotland international and veteran of English first division play with Sunderland and Stoke, “put up a star game,” scoring two goals in the 4-1 victory. Bassett, the Paterson right fullback, and Stone, the right halfback must have had a bad day: Tacony’s outside left John Smith scored the other two goals.

Tacony was now one game away from the American Cup final. To get there they would have to best the Fall River Rovers. The Rovers had made it to the semifinals the previous year and, along with Philadelphia Hibernians, had been tone of only two American team to beat the Pilgrims on their 1909 tour. On March 26, 1910, the Rovers met Tacony at the Tacony Ball Park at State and Unruh streets.

It proved to be another nasty game. The original referee had failed to show up from Brooklyn so the team captains eventually agreed to let George Young of Philadelphia officiate the game. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Young “was too severe on some things and too lenient on others” with the visitors playing “anything but gentlemanly football.”

Despite the rough play, Tacony was first on the board with McDonald, now playing at center forward, banging in a pass from Hyslop after 30 minutes. Just before halftime Rovers equalized with a “rather fluky” goal. The goalkeeper, George Cairns, had misplayed the ball, understandable when one considers he had started the year at fullback, becoming Tacony’s keeper only after their original keeper had decided to return to England earlier in the season. With about five minutes of play left in the game, a scrimmage in front of the Rovers net saw Smith score the winner. Before time was called the Rovers left fullback was sent off for tripping Hyslop. Refusing to leave the field, the Rovers manager had to “go onto the ground and take him off before the game was allowed to proceed.”

After being postponed for one week because of rain, on April 24,1910, at the Harrison Oval in Newark, NJ, Tacony faced the Scottish-Americans in the American Cup final.

The Scottish-Americans enjoyed a distinct advantage: they were from Newark. Some 7000 spectators gathered to watch the final. including 500 from Philadelphia who had traveled to support their team. Tacony, undaunted by the “homesters”, quickly showed their superiority. After only ten minutes, the combination play of the Tacony front line saw inside right George Kemp pass to Plant, who moved the ball to Smith, who then passed it to Hyslop. Hyslop saw McDonald break clear twelve yards from goal, and in the words of the Inquirer match report the next day, “McDonald made no mistake with the final shot.”

Tacony maintained their lead into the second half , but with the wind at the Scottish Americans backs, many thought the Newark team “would have no difficulty in winning out.” Soon, Tacony left fullback John Allen appeared to foul the Scottish American’s inside right Fenwick. Despite the protest of the Tacony players, referee John Nesbitt of New York awarded a penalty kick, which was converted, and the game was now tied.

Both sides pressed furiously but the Scottish Americans couldn’t penetrate Tacony’s defenses. Tacony was attacking when a defender deliberately handled the ball. Tacony were awarded a penalty kick which Morrison converted “by safely planting the sphere in the far corner of the net.” The Scottish Americans had a few more chances but “the aggressiveness of Tacony was too much for the ‘Scots,’ and they fairly played the latter off their feet in the last ten minutes.” Final score: Tacony 2, Scottish Americans 1.

For the first time since the John A. Manz team had won the cup in 1897, a Philadelphia team was the winner of the American Cup. They had not lost a friendly, a league, or cup match the entire season with only two draws in league play. As the 1910 Spalding Official Soccer Foot Ball Guide, then the official record of the American game said, “It cannot be denied that Tacony was ‘the team of the year’.” Philadelphia was ready to make its mark on the American soccer scene.

It probably goes without saying that because the Pilgrims were amateurs it didn’t mean they weren’t good. In the decades immediately following the creation of the FA in 1863 the amateur spirit had for a time been ascendant over attempts to create professional teams. When the FA legalized professionalism in 1885, followed soon after by the formation of the Football League in 1888, amateur teams could no longer expect to compete at the top flight. Amateur players could and the Pilgrims had many such players, including team captain Fred Milnes, who played for Sunderland, as well as players from Woolrich Arsenal (now known simply as Arsenal), Fulham, Notts County and Southampton. Philadelphia hadn’t fielded a professional team since the mid 1890s.

While the Pilgrims were not a standing team, they had the advantage of having played together far longer than many of the picked sides they would face during their tours in America. During their 1905 tour they played 12 matches over 2 months in Canada and the United States, scoring 72 goals while conceding seven, losing but one game.

The Pilgrims, 1909

All of them being public-school educated, the avowed purpose of the Pilgrims was to spread the game of soccer in American universities, going so far as to offer the services of top English coaches. As it turned out they only played one college side during the 1905 tour, a team made up of, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, “past and present” players from the University of Pennsylvania. In front of a crowd at Franklin Field of “between 3000 or 4000 persons” the Penn side went down 10 to 0.

Following the Pilgrims first visit to America the number of soccer programs at American universities did increase. But this was probably related more to a growing backlash against the violent play in American gridiron football. A New York Times report in 1904 stated that some 21 deaths had occurred in the college football season that year. Soccer seemed to many to be a less violent alternative.

Soccer had lost out to gridiron football in American universities in the 1870s. Aside from a few notable attempts to revive the game, it was not until suburban Philadelphia’s Haverford College fielded a team led by Richard M. Gummere in 1902 that soccer began to reappear on American campuses in earnest. Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale soon were also fielding teams. Gummere proved to be something of a soccer prophet: when he went to Harvard for graduate studies he helped to establish the game there.

If the on field violence of gridiron football wasn’t enough, some college administrators decried how the drive to win corrupted the amateur spirit and led student athletes to neglect their studies. Even President Theodore Roosevelt – whose son had just joined the Harvard freshman football squad -  got involved, calling representatives from Harvard, Yale and Princeton to a meeting at the White House where he urged them, as David Wangerin writes in Soccer in a Football World, “to redraft football’s rules to encourage safer and fairer play, and to better uphold the ideals of amateurism and university life.”

When the Pilgrims returned for a second tour of America in 1909, such concerns were probably not in the minds of American soccer fans. They simply wanted to see a good team from the birthplace of the game. That they did as the Pilgrims continued to dominate, scoring 123 goals while allowing only 12 in 22 games, winning 16 and losing two with four draws.

In Philadelphia the Pilgrims were scheduled to play three matches: one against a picked team from the Associated Cricket Clubs League (ACCL), one against Hibernians, a club from Kensington and the champions of the Pennsylvania League, and then a final game against a picked All-Philadelphia team. Because, with the exception of matches scheduled to be played on a holiday, almost all league games at that time took place on a Saturday, that two of the games were scheduled for a Tuesday and a Thursday was noteworthy since the vast majority of the city’s soccer players and fans were immigrant factory workers.

The picked team of the ACCL may have come close to being social equals to some on the Pilgrim squad in the class consciousness of the day but they were no match on the pitch. Some 1500 spectators turned up at the Merion Cricket Club in Haverford on November 2, 1909, to watch the home side lose 3-0. Despite the fact that, in the words of the match report in the November 3, 1909 edition of the Inquirer, several of the Pilgrims “were in a more or less crippled condition,” the visitors had played a fast game, “much too fast for the home team.”

Two thousand spectators showed up to see the Pilgrims meeting with Hibernians at the Germantown Cricket Club in the Manheim section of the Philadelphia on November 4, 1909, even though “a terrific wind and rain storm” had swept over the city shortly before the kickoff. According to the match report from the November 5, 1909, edition of the Inquirer, the game started with the visitors appearing “tired and listless.” The Inquirer reported that the “Irishmen quickly sized up the situation and throughout the game plugged in the most persistent fashion” with a “hard, aggressive” style of play.

After a scoreless first half and another storm, the Pilgrims played with the wind at their backs, leading many spectators to think they would finally “wake up and make things lively for the Hibernians.” This they did but, “[f]ifteen minutes from the re-start, the Hibernian forwards got away and a misunderstanding between Bayley [right fullback] and Milnes [left fullback] let in Andy Brown [outside left], who scored with a fairly fast, low shot, the backs impeding [goalkeeper] Lemoines view of the ball.”

With the goal scored, “the partisans of the Hibernians went wild with joy and the cheering was kept up for several minutes.”

“Thoroughly aroused by the reverse,” the Pilgrims attacked furiously and the “Hibs goal had several narrow escapes.” At one point a Pilgrims corner kick went through the goal “but it did not touch another player, and was therefore disallowed.” (Yes, the rules were different then. Goals were not allowed from direct free kicks until 1927.) It was a historic victory and the first loss suffered by the Pilgrims during their 1909 tour. The Inquirer reported the next day that “there was great rejoicing in Kensington last night over the victory of the Irishmen, and the defeat of the tourists will give a great boost to local football.”

The “great boost” proved not to be immediately measurable: in front of “8000 spectators” at the Germantown Cricket Club two days later, the All Philadelphia team lost 9 goals to 0.

On November 10, 1909, the Fall River Rovers of Massachusetts drew with the Pilgrims 1-1, beating them three days later 2 goals to 1. Soccer continued to spread at American universities. Despite periodic concerns about violence in the game, college football would continue to thrive and capture the imagination of the nation. Though the first professional gridiron football league, the Ohio League, had been formed in 1903, it would take decades for the National Football League, originally called the American Professional Football League when it was formed in 1920, to supplant college football’s popularity. Professional soccer specifically, and soccer in America generally, would yet face many ups and downs.

The All-Philadelphia team takes its licks in the Inquirer with a headline that says it all