This paper was originally published in the Journal of Ethno-Development by the Michigan Ethnic Heritage Studies Center in 1992 and is reproduced with the author’s permission.
In a recent article in USYSA NETWORK. the writer stated that “the first generation of true American players has grown up, and is beginning to take over the grassroots coaching reins For young Americans who began playing soccer in the ‘40s in urban America, these words ring hollow. People writing about soccer seem to forget the generation of young Americans exposed to the game from their immigrant fathers three decades before Pele’s debut in the North American Soccer League in the mid-’70s. This paper is written to remind us that American soccer didn’t start with Pele.
My earliest soccer memories were watching my father play in the late ‘30s and kicking a ball in the streets with my twin brother, Jim. I remember above all the pungent smell of liniment in the changing rooms for my father’s teams-they had no locker rooms, just places to change-and hang around with Jim as our father prepared for a match with his German-Hungarian dub. The “Hunkies an outstanding amateur soccer team in late 30s Philadelphia, were no different than the other ethnic clubs that dotted the Philadelphia landscape in this period. They were Scow on the Bluebelles. the First Germans, the Irish playing with the Celtics, along with union-backed teams like the Bricklayers and Hosiery Local, or corporate teams such as Bethlehem Steel and Fleischer Yarn. Ethnics dominated Philadelphia soccer, although Philadelphia nurtured a sizable number of home-grown talent.
My father was a blur in his red and black jersey-running, passing. tackling, yelling-a 5’7” pesty Scottish center half moving up and down the field under the traditional 2-3-5, soccer’s mainstay system since the 1870s. And he seemed to be always full of mud.
Jim and I shared in oranges with the players at halftime, sometimes kicking a ball with a sympathetic player. These early experiences created an accepting, pleasant soccer environment for us. But beyond the liniment, the ethnic clubs, and the post-game parties where someone was always good for a soda, we had the streets of Philadelphia’s Kensington where we grew up in a working-class neighborhood of red brick row houses on a tight little street. Helen Street was our playground, a garage door our goal. Streetlights and curbs were merely additional obstacles to be overcome. We went I vs 1 for hours on that street, joined occasionally by cousins and neighbor kids for 2 vs I or 3 vs 2 games. Time skipped by and 25-20 was not an uncommon score.
We always kept score, building in an early and not-to-be-forgotten competitiveness. We invented ways to take inch other on without instruction, now called “self-teaching” by the licensed coaches. We also fought with each other and with neighbor kids. Our father, a former amateur boxer in Scotland, had taught us to use our fists when we were five years old: “If you’re going to play this game, you have to know how to fight,” words reminiscent of an earlier era of rough-and-tumble ethnic soccer.
Whatever we did with the ball on Helen Street, we learned the rudiments of soccer techniques and tactics with tough, challenging opponents, inventing moves as we needed them. We shielded, overlapped, changed pace and direction, jockeyed, executed wall passes, and nutmegged each other without ever hearing the terms.
Occasionally our father would join us, but the long hours of work during World War II took him away most of the time. He did find time to train the Bluebelles, and our joys came in getting a used ‘T-Ball,” as they were called then, a bloated leather misshapen bladder-filled ball that rolled in curious and unpredictable directions. We could depend on a hand-me-down pair of Hotspurs or Mansfields once a season, soccer shoes with high tops, steel toes, and replaceable nail-in leather studs. When our father brought home a torn Bluebelles white-and-blue striped jersey, we fought over it to decide who would be “the big player’ that day. This wasn’t used equipment-it was new for us and helped us to identify with the older players.
How difficult it is to explain to young players today, including my daughter who is a good player, how we felt about these clunky old shoes when they think nothing of paying out $100 or more because they like the purple and yellow stripes on the shoes, or $60 for a slick, imitation leather b that never loses its shape.
We loved the game in the streets. Adults were not around to teach us the Coerver techniques or tell us to “Lock your ankle.” And when we wore those clumsy Mansfields we moved our 1 v 1 to the 100-year-old abandoned Franklin Cemetery down the Street where tombstones became our goal posts and the winos our spectators.
We especially looked forward to seeing the pros, usually at Cambria Stadium at Torresdale and Kensington Avenues as It was on the trolley line and we could see the Philadelphia Americans take on the Brooklyn Hispano or Ponta Delgada of Fall River. Our heroes were “Lefty’ Mervine, Philly’s superb left halfback, or “Dutch” Christian, a sturdy right fullback and a great sportsman, or “Duke” Nanoski, the peppy center forward.
But the name that sent murmurs through the crowd and excited the kids was Billy Gonsalves of Brooklyn Hispano. Gonsalves, often called the “Babe Ruth” of American soccer, was a dominating center-halfback who stood at 6’2 and came in at 210 pounds. After watching the imposing Gonsalves direct traffic in the midfield or drive powerful shots from 35 yards out, we returned to Helen Street to imitate his move. Later on it was Walter Bahr and Bennie McLaughlin of the Philadelphia Nationals who became our idols, two of the best American-born players of the era.
Opposing players who stayed with us were Jackie Hynes with the New York Americans, and John “Clarkie” Souza of Fall River. I recall watching the balding John Souza dribble three opponents on the Philadelphia Nationals’ old home field, Holmes Stadium on Erie Avenue, go for goal and suddenly step over the ball, heel It to change direction, and completely befuddle his mark as he drove the ball into the far corner. I worked on that move for weeks until It became part of my own repertoire of dribbling moves. Always emulating, acting out what we had seen-something so desperately needed on the pro scene in soccer today for the youngsters coming up and seeking their own heroes.
Coaches today do not structure a youth players formative years in this manner. They teach by books and tapes, drills and freeze situations, and dribbling through cones. The streets are dangerous, cemeteries are off limits and no substitute for playgrounds, teams are organized for four-year olds. Coaches have formal training, too much individualism is suspect, and kids are coached, or at time over-coached, n the “proper techniques”. We were left alone to develop, with lopsided, worn leather balls and an instinct to I vi or3 v 2 without adult supervision or “coachable moments”.
By the time we were 9 years old, in 1942, we were ready for formal teams, which in the Kensington neighborhood meant the Lighthouse Boys Cub soccer program, the famed incubator of youth soccer in Philadelphia since the turn of the century. We also played American football and baseball, as good American kids, but given our choice, we were always drawn to the streets and our soccer ball-our natural element.
Lighthouse was founded in 1897 by Mrs. Robert Bradford, a Philadelphia socialite. This was a time when Jane Addams and other social reformers were establishing their settlement houses and neighborhood centers to help the wave of European immigrants and their youngsters cope with urban life. Lighthouse capitalized on its Scottish, Irish, and English neighbors’ passion for soccer and early on created a soccer foothold in the Kensington community. Most boys started with the Club at 9-10 years of age. often staying with the Lighthouse teams until they were ready for play in Philadelphia’s top First Division or the pros. For years Lighthouse had provided the senior amateur teams and the pros with top class, home-grown American talent. For example, the 1936 Olympic Soccer Team had four former Lighthouse players in its ranks, a tradition that went back to the 1912 Olympics.
Lighthouse offered us age divisions, a club for practices, a large field complex, and retired English and Scottish players to coach “the lads.” My first coach, Ozzie Lynn, a wrinkled, stolid Englishman who could still drive a ball 60 yards, appeared every Saturday morning, rain or shine, in the same old, patched green sweater to put us on the field. By this time, we had mastered the basic techniques from our years o f intense street soccer, so Ozzie’s task was to Instruct us: “Don’t hold on to the ball,” “Get it up the field,” or “Put it in the net.” We did this with regularity, often ignoring his exhortations to play “the English game.
Coach Ozzie told us where to play, still in the traditional 2-3-5, and we did it. We changed in a one-room, timbered clubhouse with no showers or heat, often shivering until we moved onto the field and started running. We always walked the three miles to the field, arriving ready to play without warmup or stretching, and walking home afterwards, our boots over our shoulders. Raw, tough, hard soccer where we honed our skills, applying what we had learned in the streets to real, full-sided game. We now started to learn positions, heading (seldom done in street soccer), and a tactical sense of the game.
We were low-income kids, so our equipment consisted of the hand-me-down-high top Mansfields or Hotspurs-the only shoes available, colored sweatshirts for uniforms, and usually Popular Mechanics or some other pulp magazine for shin guards. They made good reading at half time. The Club supplied one ball per game and an older player to referee. We came with a love of the game and good technique and skills, but we had to learn to play on the larger field with a full team
But the street soccer moves paid off. Just a few years later we were playing against some of the best players in the country, and I made It to the U.S. Olympic Team final tryouts in St Louis in 1952 at the age of 18. When I think ofour years in the streets, unsupervised, I wonder if we would have been better players with trained coaches, as many youngsters, both boys and girls, have today? Probably. Would we have faced the twin danger of being overcoached while being discouraged from taking risks and working on new moves on the field? Possibly. Did we gain an appreciation for the game, confidence in our skills, and a competitive drive that would last a lifetime? Absolutely.
We didn’t call them travel or select teams then, just Lighthouse Juniors playing in the 20-team, two-tiered Philadelphia Third Division, or Junior League. We played a full season, non-stop, from September to June, with few games called for inclement weather- a schedule that gave us close to4O games a year, equivalent to any European youth program.
Since Philadelphia was a neighborhood city, populated by ethnic groups attracted by job opportunities particularly in the textile mills, along with plentiful housing, organized soccer in the city reflected the city’s ethnic/neighborhood mix. Teams came from Cardington in West Philadelphia, Nicetown in the North Philadelphia area, Germantown in the Northwest, and numerous neighborhoods like Kensington and Harrogate in the hotbed of soccer, Northeast Philadelphia, with its large concentration of immigrants. As the ethnics moved out of the city to the suburbs north of the city, teams like the Erzgebirge Club for the Germans and the Ukrainian Cub grew up to serve their youngsters.
Unlike our modern youth soccer breakdown of U-l9, U-17, U-16, and so on, the Philadelphia Third Division simply went up to 18 years old; anyone younger could play whatever his age. The League was affiliated with the Philadelphia Soccer League composed of three divisions-Juniors, Second Division, and the First Division-the top amateur grouping. No USYSA, no AYSO, no state youth soccer associations unlinked with the top-level amateur clubs. Once you started with the Juniors, you were expected to move up the ladder-there were always older teams to play for. The Eastern Pennsylvania District was affiliated with the United States Soccer Federation, founded in 1913 to oversee soccer in the US and the FIFA-sanctioned body for soccer in our country.
Our team was coached by my cousin, Tom Oliver, a star with the Philadelphia Nationals pro team. We received little instruction, no overlapping or diagonal off-the-ball runs, no “numbers’ down” game, no Coerver moves. We built these features into our game by instinct, without instruction. We had only one system of play-the old 2-3-5, with a great workload falling on the inside forwards and the halfbacks, specially the center half Our practices were simply a continuation of street soccer-we played, practiced moves, and played some more. No drills, no warmups, no cones, no manuals, no pennies-just play, experiment, and always go for goal.
We were rugged, urban kids who wanted to win and had the skills to back up our cockiness. We won two straight Philadelphia Junior League titles, going on to win two consecutive National JunIor Cup titles In 1948 and 1949, running up a string of 36 straight victories.
In those days, the referee, all former players, let us play. No cards, just occasional verbal warnings to “Hold It down” to keep control or to ensure fairness. But you had to be tough. There was a lot of intimidation, occasional fights, lots of heckling from the sidelines. But the referees knew us and knew the dynamic of the game-we settled matters on the field with our feet. Some of the raft had colorful names, like “Offsides Smitty,” known in his playing days as the forward who couldn’t stay onside. Since we didn’t have registration cards with photos, we would tell a ref new to us that the first scorer’s name was “Bill Zook’ who incidentally came in second In League scoring one year-and didn’t exist!
Toughness on the field, backing down from no one, helped me later when I was playing against international teams, or playing overseas, taking the bruising tackles and giving it back-knowing the fouls would not be called. Today, our kids seem surprised when they go overseas where fouls that would be called in the US are overlooked in the course of the play overseas.
The National Junior Cup competition pitted city against city in one-game knockout competitions. We hosted the Schumacher Club of St. Louis in 1948, winning 1-0 on a direct corner kick before 2,000 fans, and then defended our title the following year by defeating the Windsor S.C. 2-1 in a rainswept night game before 250 fans at St. Louis’ Public Schools Stadium. This game stands out as a lasting soccer memory. Windsor scored with two minutes remaining. Somehow we came back with two goals in one minute in the mud, forcing our way into the box to win our second title-a truly memorable soccer moment for a 14-year old player. After two years in the Junior Division, we were ready to move up to the next level of competition. That’s the way it was done-when you were ready, you played up.
Cub teams normally moved up to the Second and First Division amateur ranks in Philadelphia. Our Lighthouse Junior team took a different path. We left the Lighthouse Club to play under the banner of the professional Philadelphia Nationals. We played as the Fairhlll S.C., kids playing against seasoned veterans, many who had learned soccer in their native lands. Whenever lam asked today by anxious parents if their kids should “play up,” I give the Fairhlll S.C. example. Some of us were only 16 years old playing against 30-year old men. We won the Second Division and then went on to win the citywide, prestigious Palmer Cup, symbolic of soccer supremacy in amateur soccer in Philadelphia.
We often trained with the Philadelphia Nationals, observing and emulating the pros, and our skills and sense of the game grew apace. We never discussed tactics. By this time we had adopted the stopper or “Third Back,” known as the “W-M” system, a change introduced by Charlie Buchan, skipper of the great Arsenal teams in England in the early ‘30s. The W-M was designed to counteract the new offsides law, and lasted for three decades until the Brazilians introduced the world to the 4-2-4 in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. As a young GI, I saw Brazil play in that World Cup in Gothenburg, marveling at their skills with the ball, their dexterity, and their unusual formation with only two halfbacks.
Without coaching schools, soccer newsletters, papers like Soccer America and the NCSCAA Soccer Journal, and almost all volunteer coaches-ex-players who coached from intuition, innovations took a long time to become reality. Soccer traditions die slowly, as we see even today as FTPA tinkers with the laws to increase scoring.
Just as today, whole families involved themselves with soccer, but it was still a male-dominated sport When the Fairhill S.C. met the First Division champion Kensington Bluebelles In the Palmer Cup final in 1950, we were the kids playing against the team of our fathers and uncles. The final, played at old Holmes Stadium rent into double overtime when the younger legs prevailed 5-3. Our fathers and uncles talked about that game for years.
It eased the pain when some of us first-generation Scots-Americans played for the Bluebelles the following year. The Bluebelles discarded their veterans and filled the ranks with the kids. My brother and I were finally united with our father, the Bluebelles. trainer. We had taken another step up the soccer ladder-all within the Philadelphia club structure.
With the Bluebelles in our first year, 1950-51, we were thrown into competition with seasoned players of Italian, Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Armenian, and German descent Just a few years removed from the end of World War II, soccer in Philadelphia took on an even more ethnic flavor as European immigrants flowed into the city. Many of the players had played top-level competition In “the old country and immediately raised the caliber of play in Philadelphia’s amateur ranks. We now signed USSF forms, but with no cards and no photos, registration showed a more casual approach to the game than found today.
The Philadelphia First Division clubs had their share of characters in those days, seemingly miSsing from our do-It-by-the-book soccer of today. We seem unable to tolerate strong individualism. Players like “Cocky” O’Kane, whose crossed eyes became disconcerting to defenders trying to predict the direction of his passes. But call him “Cocky’ and you had an immediate brawl There was “Chippy” McLaren known for the deadly accuracy of his chipped passe, or ‘Sox” Flynn whose socks never stayed up, and ‘Dutch” from Germany. Even the team names had an international flavor-Juventus, Pulaski, Inter, Celtics, and the Polish Falcons.
This was a time in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s when the American Soccer League sponsored foreign touring teams, so we could see Liverpool P.C with the great Billy Liddell in 1948 and his long, weaving runs down the wing. But our real heroes were Bahr and McLaughlin who led the Philadelphia Nationals to three title in four years, Hynes of the New York Americans, another Hall of Famer, and Ray McFaul and Gil Schuerholz of the old Baltimore Americans. Just a few years later in the mid-’50s, we were playing with Bahr and McLaughlin, the best players of their day. We were p laying against the likes of Johnny Carey, great right half of the touring Manchester United and Max Morlock, German international with Nurernberg P.C. Nuremberg defeated the Philadelphia All-Stars in 1955 before 5,000 spectators by an 8-5 score, with Morlock scoring 4 goals against me. As youngsters, like the players on our U-23s and our US National Team today, playing against this level of competition gave us the confidence to take on anyone.
Some of us were selected to compete in the 1952 Olympic tryouts in New York and St. Louis for the team to go to Helsinki. National teams in those days were selected by a USSF National Selection Committee which conducted the tryouts. No ODP programs, no state or regional select teams, no U-17 orU-20 teams, no women’s teams-just a Committee with all the major regions, the colleges, and the Armed Forces represented. The Committee members selected players for the tryouts from their knowledge of their 10 talents and their awareness of the need for geographic representation. Politics also played a role-”You put my player on and we’ll take care of yours.”
In the ’52 Olympic final tryouts in St. Louis, I played with Jack Dunn and Lefty Didriksen from our original Lighthouse team in a tough, two-game series representing the East squad. We played on the same team with John and Eddie Sousa, players I had watched in awe as a youngster when Ponta Delgada came to town. They impressed me with their willingness to share the ball, their soccer smarts with “the kids” in the tryouts, and their encouraging play. I made alternate-and felt proud to be there.
Throughout my youth career in soccer, I had played only two systems, either the 2-3-5 or the W-M with the stopper back. The 4-2-4, the 4-4-2. and the 4-3-3 were still to be invented. Coaches were ox-plays, and coaching meant putting the team on the field. We always knew what we had to do. We never discussed systems of play or tactical play. With the amateurs we received spending money and even with the pros, we never received more than $15-20 a game. We were fit, technically adept, and competitive. We loved to play and most of us continued in long careers into our 30s. Cub soccer honed our skills, but school and college soccer brought us glory, brought out the spectators, and provided us with the education we needed to have a life beyond soccer.
Just as today, high school soccer In Philadelphia In the ‘40s and early ‘50s reflected club soccer. All the public schools and many of the private schools had soccer teams, but the schools in the neighborhoods with ethnic strongholds dominated the high school scene. At Northeast H.S., for example, where most of the Lighthouse products went, including Bahr and other pros of the day, we ran the school’s unbeaten string to 96 game, with 63 straight shutouts-.a run that lasted over 10 years. City title, All-Scholastic representative, All-Star games, all came to the street-smart youngsters who came out of the Lighthouse Boys Cub. The annual All-Star match with New York’s high school stars would draw 3,000 spectators, with the teams playing for the Oldtimers’ “Old Shoe” Award. No girls played club soccer, and no high schools had girls teams. We would have to wait 30 years for the high schools to adopt girls’ soccer, when in a different age more and more club players and their parents demanded equality with boys’ soccer, spurred by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Soccer was a sport dominated by the club structure. You cannot develop a player in high school, you can only further talents already developed and raise a players awareness of the game. This fact was often lost on the media, so accustomed to focusing on high school and college games while ignoring where the real soccer is played. The same holds true today. Our high school games would draw 500 fans, and over 5,000 came out for the city title game, usually pitting Northeast against Girard College. a school for orphans for its soccer talents.
Philadelphia liked its soccer, and the college game reflected the strength of Philadelphia youth soccer. All the local college fielded strong teams-Temple, University of Pennsylvania, LaSalle, and Drexel leading the way. Many of the Lighthouse-Northeast H.S. contingent received full scholarships to Temple, one of approximately 90 varsity programs around the country in the early ‘50s. The strongest teams, like Temple, the University of San Francisco, and Penn State University were fed by the influence of urban youngsters, while in the Ivy League, New England’s prep schools provided the talent. No women’s varsity soccer programs existed.
On New Years Day in 1950, the nation witnessed the First College Soccer Bowl, bringing perennial powers Penn State and USF to St. Louis in a game that ended in a 2-2 tie. The schools were declared Co-Champions. Cross-sectional rivalry had become a reality, giving a great boost to college soccer.
College soccer history was made in 1951 when our Temple Owls met USF in the Second Soccer Bowl in San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium before 10,000 fans-the largest crowd to see a college soccer game in the US. The game attracted outstanding media coverage, accounting for the attendance. We flew cross-country on a 24-hour flight. Coach Pete Leans asked me to captain the team from my center half position, an honor for a freshman. We defeated USE 2-0 with Ed Tatoian scoring both goals, and Temple was named National Champion. No more Soccer Bowls were held until 1959 when the NCAA began its formal playoff system.
The kids from the streets of Kensington and the playing fields of Lighthouse transferred their skills and competitiveness to college soccer, with Temple losing only three games in the four years I played. Some of the local teams such as Drexel and Penn were very strong, bolstered by the ethnic neighborhood players, but Temple dominated Philadelphia college soccer. We were again declared National Champions in 1953, after an unbeaten season.
During my freshman year at Temple, we played the traditional 2-3-5, but moved in subsequent years to the W-M. We essentially put ourselves on the field, ran the practices, and rarely played less than the full 90 minute.
Each year, we watched as new varsity teams sprang up across the country, so by 1955 when I graduated from Temple. there were 125 college soccer programs in 31 states. One year later, there were 171 college teams, with another 100 playing club soccer2 The college game was on its way, fueled by American-born youngsters.
The early ‘50s were also a time of experimentation in college soccer. Up to this time, college soccer had followed FIFA’s Laws. In 1951, the colleges introduced the “kick-in” to replace the throw-in, a change benefiting the inferior teams. They essentially received a free kick instead of the normal throw-in, thereby taking a restart tactic out of the college game.
Other experiments, short-lived, included an arc 18 yards out instead of the penalty area. Free substitution was the norm, allowing less skilled but fit “runners” to come in off the bench and affect the game. Colleges also played 22-minute quarters, and referees employed the two-man system, enabling older referees-and there were many-to remain in the game a few years longer One my neighbor and dear friend, Jimmy Walders, refereed high school and college game well into his 80.
The college referee came basically from the amateur ranks, all former players, who tolerated no abuse, but who let the players play and work out their differences on the field- where It belongs. In one memorable hard-fought game between traditional rivals Temple and Penn State for the National Championship in 1953, play became so heated that one Temple player broke his leg and several others were canted off. The referees, Walder and Harry Rogers, both from Philadelphia, called time and brought both teams to mid-field. ‘You’re getting our first warning-.all of you,” said Walder. sternly. “Next time you’re gone.” Players settled down, just as intense, but fair and the teams belted it out in a 2-0 Temple victory without any more trouble. It was the only time in my career that all 22 players had received what amounted to a “yellow card” in today’s language.
When we left Temple, we finally split up the “Lighthouse connection,” some of us going into the Armed Forces, some to the pros, some back to the amateur leagues, and some coaching. Almost all of us stayed in the game into our 30s, often competing with and occasionally against each other.
As a young player in the ‘40s, we often watched the Philadelphia Americans and the Philadelphia Nationals. Eventually we trained with the pros as we moved up the soccer ladder. By the time we signed with the pros in the mid-’50s. Bahr, McLaughlin,Hynes, and our heroes from our junior days were well-established stars. For Americans. Bahr and McLaughlin had no equals. We learned from both-Bahr with his end-to-end hustle, his ball control, his long accurate passes, his 40-yard throws, his take-charge leadership, and his powerful shots on goal. The smaller McLaughlin inspired us with his finesse, dribbling opponents one-on-one throughout the game, lithe, snaking through defenses, setting up other attackers with deadly through pass., a little guy taking on the biggest defenders. bouncing up from bruising tackle, and also possessing a devastating shot.
I joined the Philadelpia Uhrik Truckers, named after owner Tony Uhrik Philadelphia trucking magnate, in 1955. The Truckers had taken the old Philadelphia Americans’ franchise, and won back-to-back American Soccer League titles in 1955 and 1956. Jimmy Mills, the ageless Haverford University coach who recently passed away at 96. coached the Uhriks. I’ll always remember Jimmy’s Scottish accent booming out, “Give it a bit more ginger, lads.”
The ASL was semi-pro, the only recognized professional league In the US at the time. Players were also - in the old German-American League (GAL) in New York “under the table,” but the “pros” were in the ASL.
The “modern ASL,” formed In 1933 with exclusive rights from the USSF to operate professional soccer on the Eastern seaboard, by mid-1950 was on reasonably solid footing. The ASL had initiated its foreign tours in 1946, earning money from the games. Dominated by New York and Philadelphia teams, the ASL represented with the GAL, the peak of soccer in the eastern U.S. at the time. Ethnic teams like the New York Hakoah. Brooklyn Hispano, the Newark Portuguese, the Newark Ukrainians, and Ludlow Lusitano competed alongside American-grown talent from the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas. In the mid-50s, there was nowhere else to go to play top-level soccer in the US.-at least on the East coast. The other top amateur leagues in the country were the National Soccer League of Chicago, St. Louis Major League and the Greater Los Angeles League. All of these except for the ASL and St. Louis Leagues remain active to this day.
The ASL contributed to the growth of US. soccer by keeping the pro game alive until the upsurge in pro teams in the late ‘60s, bringing foreign teams to play the ASL All-Stars and each other, and providing players for the US. National Team. The ASL attracted hundreds of coaches, referee, administrators, and spectators who later would become the basis for the growth of pro soccer.
The Philadelphia pro teams often attracted several thousand spectators in this soccer-hungry town, whereas away game were often played before sparse crowds with little media attention in dusty ovals. For example, the Brooklyn Hispano played on a cinder field which served as a parking lot during the week, with the tire tracks often making the path of the ball unpredictable. Metropolitan Oval in New York’s Bronx was often our destination after a three-hour drive where we played rain or shine before several hundred standing and often hostile spectators. Being on the touch line, the fans could yell at both opposing players and officials indiscriminately. After these games, we often had to exit in a circle, fists at the ready, as fans tried to get at us, forgoing the single shower to jump in our cars for the long ride home. The referee disappeared equally as fast.
Whatever criticisms have been leveled at the ASL, thousands of youngsters had heroes to emulate and exciting soccer to watch. We could shoot for a pro spot after college, as some of us did, to continue our playing. We could watch world-class foreign teams, marveling at their skills and speed. It was the best soccer around for the period, and American-born players more than held their own. The ASL also kept pro soccer alive until the mid-’60s arrival of the new professional leagues-the United Soccer Association (1967), the National Professional Soccer League (1967), and then the North American Soccer League (1968).
Soccer in the ‘40s and ‘50s was basically a big-city sport, particularly in the ethnic enclaves, in direct contrast to the growth of the soccer phenomenon after Pele arrived in the mid-’70s. This later growth period, triggered by the North American Soccer League’s success, the play of Pele, Beckenbaurer, and Chinaglia, among others, had its greatest successes in America’s suburbs. By this time, many of the ethnic groups had abandoned the cities. Their kids, along with other suburban kids whose parents had never seen a game of soccer, became the basis for our recent soccer explosion of the last 20 years.
The sole exception is the young Hispanic and Caribbean player living in the inner-city, often without a youth team, soccer shoes, or good soccer balls. Thee kids are on the urban, inner-city playgrounds going 1 v 1 like their counterparts from Kensington half a century ago. What they need is a Lighthou4 Boys Club, tents to play on, and organized soccer when they are ready so they can make their mark on the game and enjoy it.
The future of soccer in America’s white, suburban areas and small towns, a recent phenomenon, seems assured. The game has attracted millions of youngsters and their parents new to soccer. It can only grow. But the future of soccer in America is also in America’s cities, with predominantly African-American youths untouched by soccer and Hispanic kids seeking outlets for their talents. Their future in the sport is more problematic.
Ironically, our nation’s inner cities, just as they were when we were playing on the streets of Kensington, are once again America’s future in soccer. We played because we saw something in the game we liked. As urban, low-income kids, we mastered a skill, we worked together on teams, we traveled to other cities, and we grew with the sport. We left the neighborhood, primarily because of the exposure from soccer to a larger world, but the neighborhood never left us. If we can instill this same spirit in today’s urban youth, our future as a soccer-playing nation holds great promise.
References:T. R. Kerth, “Some Good Advice About How to Handle ‘A Bad Ref’ USYSA New York (Winter, 1991-92), p. 17.
Zander Hollander, Ed.. The American Encyclopedia of Soccer (New Yoric Everest House Publishers, 1980), p.69.The USA Soccer History Archives are maintained by Dave Litterer
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