Tom McCabe on the recent unveiling of a statue in Harrison, New Jersey, commemorating the history of soccer in the West Hudson.
New Jersey
Sailor lads, jolly tars, and rovers of the briny deep: International ship-crew soccer matches in the US, 1890-1905, part 1
Ed Farnsworth’s review of matches between US clubs and British ship crew teams between 1890 and 1905 begins with a look at matches played in New York and Northern New Jersey.
Fifty Years On: Teska and Schellscheidt on the 1970 U.S. Open Cup
Heinz Teska and Manny Schellscheidt reflect on Elizabeth SC’s run through the US Open Cup in 1970. Includes a video interview.
Reading your own obituary: Samuel Bustard, the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and the evolution of New York Metro Area soccer
Kurt Rausch’s examination of the career of Samuel Bustard — who was widely, and wrongly, reported dead during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic — illuminates soccer in the New York Metro Area in the 1910s and 1920s.
After the collapse: ALPF vs. ALPF in Baltimore and Fall River, 1894-96
Following the collapse of the ALPF after only 16 games over two weeks, four former ALPF sides met in seven additional matches, including a series of three games in Fall River for the “championship of America.” Former Boston and Brooklyn ALPF professionals continued in Fall River after that.
Including Kearny’s Leonard Raney
In the fall of 1922, Leonard H. Raney played on the first-ever varsity soccer team for Kearny High School. That New Jersey town, which would later be dubbed Soccer Town, USA, had long been a soccer hotbed. It was rare for African Americans to play soccer in the 1920s, and while African-American participation in the game still lags today, Raney was a soccer pioneer.
Turkey Bowl
American football is a Thanksgiving tradition, but so is soccer. In fact, Thanksgiving Soccer is nearly as old as the holiday itself. A day of national thanksgiving goes back to the colonial period, but it took President Abraham Lincoln to institute it as a late-November holiday. Modern soccer, codified […]
When a goal is not a goal
An examination of the Columbia-Rutgers game played on Nov. 2, 1872 shows it was played under a form of association football rules, not American gridiron rules.
Yankee, Cowboy, Fenian Bastard: An American Catholic at Rangers Football Club
In 1976, Hugh O’Neill — born in Kearney, NJ into a family of Celtic supporters — became the first “admitted Catholic” to play for Rangers.
Live From Acapulco, It’s Tabare Ramos!
Tab Ramos is presently coaching the US at the U-20 World Cup. In 1982, it took a private jet and helicopter to get him to a New Jersey high school championship playoff game.
Loose threads
Tom McCabe on ONT Football Club, American soccer’s first dynasty, the American Football Association, the sports first governing body in the US.
The game that never ends
Tom McCabe on the importance of pickup soccer games.
That wooden sign
In recognition of Throwback Thursday, Tom McCabe recalls the wooden sign that used to hang behind Archie Stark’s tavern in Kearny, New Jersey
A Boca American
Peter Millar joined Inter in 1961 and by the end of his first season he led the league in scoring and was voted its top player. He took home the Most Valuable Player award again after the 1962-63 campaign, and by early 1964 a black and white photograph of a […]