Plumbing America's soccer tradition
Rangers, Rovers & Spindles
Roger Allaway
St. Johann Press, 158 pp.
American Soccer League 1921-31
Colin Jose
Scarecrow Press, 544 pp.
The Leaguers
Matthew Taylor
Liverpool University Press, 320 pp.
But some dedicated and imaginative researchers have been uncovering the origins of soccer in the US, origins that predate soccer in most other countries, and also predate most other ''mainstream" sports in the US. Yes, soccer was established in the US long before it took hold in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and Italy. And, yes, soccer was being contested at the professional level in the US in the early part of the 20th century, alongside baseball, basketball, football, and hockey -- much as it again today.
Roger Allaway's ''Rangers, Rovers & Spindles" examines the soccer strongholds of Fall River, Mass., and Kearny, N.J., where the sport was established by English and Scottish immigrants who arrived to work in the mills. The British who spread the sport of soccer to the world were often railroad workers, but the ones who came to the US Northeast were mostly textile employees from Lancashire County, Macclesfield, and Paisley, the soccer cradles of Britain. The clubs in Lancashire in the 1870s included Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End, two of the most successful clubs of the time, plus Newton Heath, which would morph into Manchester United.
Fall River, New Bedford, and Pawtucket became hotbeds for soccer, with rich mill owners sponsoring teams that would become professional and, by the 1920s, form a league that paid better than Britain and was producing high-level play. By this time, the drydocks, shipyards, and steel plants of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania were also investing in soccer, and they were drawing workers -- and players -- from all over Europe.
The American Soccer League emerged from this combination of immigration and native-born talent, the league lasting from 1921-31, folding and reconstituting in a lesser form that continued through 1983. Colin Jose describes the first 10 years of the ASL as ''the Golden Years of American Soccer," and has pieced together the history of the league despite all of its records having been lost. The ASL attracted some of Europe's best players, including the entire Hakoah Vienna team, whose players were fleeing Nazi repression, but had also recognized a golden opportunity after a crowd of 46,000 arrived for one of their exhibition games at the Polo Grounds in 1926.
The ASL's strength was the blending of imported talent with local promotion. Eventually, native-born players took their place alongside the foreign stars.
The emergence of a strong domestic game resulted in the US sending a team good enough to reach the semifinals of the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930. By then, the game had spread beyond the British communities, Fall River producing home-grown talent such as Bert Patenaude, who converted the first hat trick in World Cup history in a 3-0 US win over Paraguay in Montevideo, and Adelino ''Billy" Gonsalves, who performed in two World Cup finals and on eight US Open Cup championship teams.
Allaway relates how the economic and sociological histories of the region intertwined with soccer.
Though working conditions were difficult and there was little leisure time during the heydey of the mills, soccer provided an opportunity for a significant number of players and an outlet for spectators in the US in the early 1900s. British players were attracted by the money; English clubs imposed a maximum wage on players well into the 20th century. Matthew Taylor provides financial details in ''The Leaguers -- The Making of Professional Football in England 1900-1939."
Meanwhile, ASL teams were offering weekly salaries of 10 pounds, double the salary in England, plus another 10 pounds for working in the mill. Players were not getting rich. But, as in other sports, the owners were doing fine.
Fall River businessman Sam Mark built the US' first soccer-specific stadium (15,500 spectators) in 1923 just over the border in East Tiverton, R.I., to allow the Fall River Marksmen to avoid Blue Laws against playing games on Sunday. Other teams included
As the cotton industry went South, soccer declined on the professional level. But the game had gained a foothold in New Jersey and Southeastern Massachusetts, where the past and future continue to meet. Mark Stadium no longer exists, but regular games are held at Billy Gonsalves Field in Fall River. Harrison Soccer Club was an original member of the ASL, and Major League Soccer's Red Bull Park is to open in 2008 in Harrison, N.J., an area that continues to produce professional players such as John Harkes, Tony Meola, and Tab Ramos.
