Stateside Soccer

Tom Scholes

Description

Few fans are aware of the long, vibrant history of soccer in the USA, which dates back as far as the American Civil War. Many wrongly believe that the introduction of the North American Soccer League in the 60s brought about American soccer's debut, while in fact its first golden age came during the Roaring 20s and the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. The NASL did have a huge impact on the popularity of the game, but the instability of the league and its reliance on ageing superstars meant its heyday was over by the mid-80s. This left the door wide open for a third golden age, starting with the introduction of the incredibly successful USWNT, World Cup 1994 and MLS. Having grown for more than 25 years, played and supported by both sexes, soccer is now seen as a viable sport in a country dominated by baseball, basketball and American football. Stateside Soccer shines new light on the rich history of a sport still too often mistaken as a relatively recent import to the United States.

Sujets

• USA
• United States of America
• History of sport
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 29 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785315893
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Tom Scholes, 2019
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-521-3 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-589-3
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Early Years - Origins
2. The American Soccer League (1921-33)
3. The First World Cup (1930)
4. The Soccer Wars and the Fall of the Amateur Leagues
5. The Rise and Fall of the NASL (1968-84)
6. The USMNT History from the 1930 World Cup to the 1994 World Cup
7. The 1994 World Cup and the USMNT from 1994
8. The Introduction of the Women s Game and the Success of the USWNT
9. The Introduction of MLS and the 25-Year History of the League from 1996 to 2019
10. Conclusion
Bibliography
Dedication:
To my mum and dad, without whom this book would not have been possible to make.
Acknowledgements
THANK you to my family and my friends for their support throughout this process. Thank you to those who expressed an interest in reading this book before a word had even been written. Thank you to whoever has shown support over the past few months. Finally, thank you to the New York Knicks for providing me with some late-night company during the 2018/19 Tankathon (#TankForZion).
Introduction
FIRSTLY, I d like to introduce this book by saying thank you to those who have purchased this particular copy. I know what you re thinking, and no I am not related to Paul Scholes, although I always tell people that just to see if I get the same Oh really reaction. I always do. But this book is not about me, and while I would love to sit down and write 130,000 words on myself (don t worry, that isn t happening any time soon), I thought it would be better if I wrote 130,000 words on something that people could find useful, and the first idea that came into my head was to write about American soccer. Not just about the NASL (North American Soccer League) or MLS (Major Soccer League) or the 1994 World Cup, but the entire history, dating from the very beginning to March 2019 when I finished this book. I realised that while there had been certain books written about certain periods in US soccer history, hardly any had been done about the entirety of it, which is the task I set myself.
I must say off the bat that some chapters will be significantly shorter than others for the simple fact that getting match reports of college games in the 1800s proved to be a lot tougher than I imagined, and other than match results, attendance figures, special signings and news about the Fall River Marksmen and Bethlehem Steel, there wasn t all that much that could ve been dragged out about the American Soccer League (ASL) either. What you see in this book is the important points of those periods and none of it is my opinion. To quote Rafa Benitez, it s all facts. Sometimes there is a distinct lack of information that you just have to deal with, which was the case for most of the earlier years in this book, but once the NASL hits, it goes full out. There were more media outlets when the NASL dropped, meaning there were more news articles, interviews, Sports Illustrated columns and just a wider scope to cover the league than back in the ASL days. If they had ESPN back when Fall River had a team, I m sure most of the early chapters would focus on that instead of mini articles in local newspapers.
When I started writing this book, I had just started The Book of Basketball by one of my favourite sports writers, Bill Simmons. It was unique in a way that I find it hard to put into words, but it was unlike any other sports book I had ever read and will probably ever read. Why? Because Simmons wrote about history from a different point of view to any that I ve seen in all the sports book I ve read, and that was as a fan. He wrote TBOB from a fan s point of view, but also from a member of the media s point of view and that fascinated and inspired me. Of course, I couldn t write the way he writes because he has his own unique style that can t be replicated, only copied, but I wanted to explore the idea of writing from two different perspectives. This book gave me the perfect chance to do that because I wasn t entirely sure on the whole history of US soccer - I was certainly not aware of its origins or subsequent leagues prior to the NASL, but I was confident in my knowledge of modern USMNT and of MLS. I knew a bit about the NASL era but not everything, so I got to view things from different vantage points. At one point, I found myself going down a rabbit hole that started with the American Civil War, then to the university system in the US, to looking at how the first Englishman to play in a World Cup actually played for the United States and had been signed by an American team from Tranmere Rovers. It all worked out well because there were so many interesting parts about teams, leagues, historical context, locations of certain key areas (warning: a lot of places got turned into Duane Reades). It was all fascinating and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It goes to show that original stereotypes of US soccer can be undone if you delve into history, but at least now you don t have to delve too much or go burrowing into any online rabbit holes because you re reading this, and you can use this as a reference point the same way that I used certain books as reference points. Soccer in the United States has a wonderfully rich history that ties in with many, many historical moments in the early years of this book, but all it takes is for one person to notice something to tell the story. Whilst I don t claim to be the only person to do this (trust me, I m not), it s an honour to be able to tell the story of the beautiful game in the land of the free and the home of the brave because it deserves to be told. Maybe people have their mind set on Murica and soccer and that s fine, those people have their way of thinking and that s how they want to think, but you have to understand this: soccer in the United States didn t start with David Beckham, it didn t start with the 1994 World Cup and it didn t start with Pel and the New York Cosmos. It started way, way before all of that happened and thankfully you can read about it here unless you expected a book written by a relation of Paul Scholes, in which case you re already disappointed but put that disappointment to one side and turn the page, read the story of the vast history of soccer in the United States and enjoy!
Chapter One
The Early Years - Origins
IN the US, you have your traditional sports that have a lasting legacy for many, many years. Baseball has been a staple in American society since the 19th century, going as far back as 1839, while college football emigrated from Great Britain over to the US just 30 or so years later, with the very first game taking place in 1869 when Rutgers hosted New Jersey, before the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) officially started in 1910. Sport and American culture go hand in hand, and it is still the same today, but the origins of arguably the third most popular sport for a large part of the 19th century and bordering over into the 20th century are debated regularly.
Some argue that the game of soccer was introduced to the United States via immigrants coming from Europe into Ellis Island, with thousands of immigrants coming over from countries like Italy, Greece, Austria, Hungary, the Balkan regions of Europe as well as various other parts of western and northern Europe. These were countries and areas in Europe where soccer was vibrant and the people were obsessed with it, so it makes sense that a lot of influence came via immigration, but some also suggest that in Louisiana some of the earliest games of soccer in American history were played by working-class people from the 1850s, with a lot of Scottish, French, Irish, German and Spanish families emigrating to the state and possibly influencing the history of soccer without even realising it. In Scott Crawford s Book, A History of Soccer in Louisiana , he suggests that the very first time modern English rules for soccer in the United States were played was in Louisiana during the 1850s, a good 20 years or so before the reported influx of immigrants at Ellis Island brought the game over, and, therefore, recognises the official birthplace of soccer in the United States as Louisiana. Others suggest that the origins lie elsewhere, in particular the eastern coast of the US and in the New England area, due to the influx of immigrants who reached the east via Europe.
Of course, as with any nation who embraced the sport, you can trace back through history and find various examples of other sports that closely represent what we now know as soccer. China and Greece had it, as mentioned before, but in America there was a game called Pasuckuakohowog, which roughly translates to they gather to play ball with the foot, but, according to the US Embassy, it was this game that was first discovered by Pilgrims that set sail into the harbours of Massachusetts in the 1620s. By all accounts, Pasuckuakohowog was an absolute mess of a game, with between 500 to 1,000 people playing at a time, multiple players wearing disguises including war paint to avoid retribution after the gam