SASH releases historical American soccer newsreel footage

The Society for American Soccer History is pleased to announce the release of film footage of international club friendlies and indoor matches played in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. The footage of six matches was identified in the Universal Newsreel Collection at the National Archive.

Along with the Universal Newsreel footage, SASH is also releasing five additional international club friendly match clips from the same period courtesy of the George and Peggy Brown.

The footage features all star sides from the American Soccer League and the New York metropolitan area German American League against visiting international clubs including Liverpool FC, Inter Milan, Hapoel Palestine/Israel, and Stuttgart Kickers. Also included are international clubs friendlies between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspurs, and Manchester United and Stuttgart Kickers. The footage was filmed at Yankees Stadium, Ebetts Field, and Randalls Island.

Two clips of exhibition indoor soccer matches from 1941 played at Madison Square Garden are included in the release. The footage features New York City-based American Soccer League teams Brookhattan, Brooklyn Hispano, and St. Mary’s Celtic. This is currently the earliest known footage of indoor soccer in the US.

One further clip of footage from the first International Soccer League final in 1960 is also being released. The final between Brazil’s Bangu AC and Scotland’s Kilmarnock FC was played at the Polo Grounds.

The complete list of footage, listed by match date, is as follows:

1. February 10, 1941: Brookhattan 2-0 St. Mary’s Celtic (Madison Square Garden, Universal Newsreel)
2. May 6, 1941: St. Mary’s Celtics 4-1 Brooklyn Hispano (Madison Square Garden, Universal Newsreel)
3. May 12, 1946: New York All Stars 1-3 Liverpool (Randalls Island, Universal Newsreel)
4. May 4, 1947: New York All Stars 0-2 Hapoel Palestine (Yankee Stadium, George and Peggy Brown Collection)
5. May 16, 1948: Metropolitan All Stars 1-5 Liverpool (Triboro Stadium, Universal Newsreel)
6. July 10, 1949: New York All Stars 2-8 Inter Milan (Randalls Island, Universal Newsreel)
7. May 4, 1952: German American League All Stars 3-4 Stuttgart Kickers (Randalls Island, George and Peggy Brown Collection)
8. May 25, 1952: Manchester United 5-2 Stuttgart Kickers (Randalls Island, George and Peggy Brown Collection)
9. June 15, 1952: Manchester United 1-7 Tottenham Hotspur (Yankee Stadium, Universal Newsreel)
10. May 12, 1957: ASL All-Stars 4-6 Hapoel Israel (in color; Ebetts Field, George and Peggy Brown Collection)
11. August 6, 1960: Bangu (Brazil) 2 v 0 Kilmarnock (Scotland) (in color; Polo Grounds, International Soccer League Final, George and Peggy Brown Collection)

All of the footage will be published chronologically with daily releases on the SASH YouTube channel over the next week, beginning at noon ET on Monday, June 23, 2025 with the two indoor matches and the New York Stars vs. Liverpool.

The Universal Newsreel footage from the National Archives was digitized for SASH by Colorlab in Rockville, Maryland. The George and Peggy Brown footage was originally saved to videotape before the Brown’s had the videotape copy digitized.

This new release of follows the Society’s recent release of the earliest surviving footage of a soccer match in the United States. The 1921 footage, from a film directed by legendary American Filmmaker Frank Capra, features a friendly played between the Italia Virtus club of San Francisco against a team from the crew of the Italian Navy cruiser RM Libia. That footage was identified in Italian film archive Cinetec di Bologna. Before its discovery, the earliest surviving footage of soccer played in the US came from 1924.

In 2020, SASH released footage identified in the archives of the Swedish Film Institute. That footage included the first US Men’s National Team match, played at the start of the team’s 1916 Scandinavian tour, and two clips of footage from Bethlehem Steel FC’s 1919 tour of Scandinavia, the first visit by a US professional club team to Europe (clip one, clip two). SASH has also released footage of US troops playing soccer in France and Germany from 1918 and 1919 following the end of the First World War. All of the footage can be viewed on the SASH YouTube channel.

SASH has also catalogued links to nearly sixty newsreel clips in US and European commercial film archives related to soccer in the US between 1924 and 1984. Those links are organized by archive under the Video tab of the main menu on the SASH website homepage.