The world’s earliest soccer film with sound

The film shows less than four minutes of action from a game played at Ebbets Field on December 18, 1927 between the Brooklyn Wanderers and New York Nationals. It is not much to look at. Water and decay have damaged the footage, and if we are honest, the action on the field is not exactly compelling. The sound pops and crackles. But this is what makes the film unique. For the first time, we can both see and hear soccer as it was played in 1927. This unassuming footage is the world’s earliest known sound on film recording of a soccer game in the history of the sport. (View the film via the Fox Movietone News Collection at the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC))

Sports have long attracted the attention of filmmakers. In the 1870s, pioneers of cinema hoped to capture figures in motion and some of the earliest experiments on film included shots of gymnasts. Boxing proved especially suited to the new medium. The bulky cameras of the time could be set up and pointed at the center of the ring. Historian Seán Crosson argues that fight films proved so popular that they helped transform what had been a curiosity into a commercial entertainment industry. The list of filmic firsts involving boxing is revealing. In 1895, the first film ever screened before a paying audience was of a boxing match. Staged reenactments of famous fights were among the first films made using actors. The first feature length film and the first box office hit was a recording of a fight between Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in 1897. Two years later a bout featuring Jim Jeffries and Tom Sharkey was the first live event filmed under artificial light.

The 1890s also saw movie makers turn their cameras on soccer. Evidence shows that matches in England had been recorded in 1896 and 1897 but the footage is lost. The oldest surviving soccer film is from a game between Blackburn Rovers and West Bromwich Albion. The two teams played on September 24, 1898. The film, preserved in the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University, is less than a minute long. It was shot entirely from behind one goal. The quality, as one might expect from footage that is over 120 years old, varies and it has suffered significant damage. Still, the game itself is recognizable as the same one we watch today in high definition. Soon enough, cameras appeared at important events such as the Football Association Cup final. Attempts to piece together footage into what we would call highlights, were early examples of the art of editing.

Although filmmakers became increasingly clever at figuring out new ways to present sports on film, one thing they could not do was capture sound. Previous attempts to record sound for moving pictures had been unpopular with the public and unprofitable for the studios. Part of the problem was that making talking pictures required the development of a whole set of new technologies. To be effective the system needed to be able to record, reproduce and project high quality sound. Even the great inventor Thomas Edison could not make it work. His first effort from 1895 paired film with sound recorded on a separate disc. It proved to be both expensive and unpopular. In 1913, he launched the Kinetophone system but problems with sound quality and volume meant it attracted few customers.

During the 1920s, important breakthroughs took place at corporations like Western Electric in the United States and Tri-Ergon A. C. in Germany. Individual researchers Lee de Forest, Theodore Case, and Earl Sponable also pushed the technology forward. Because of previous high-profile failures like Edison’s Kinetophone, film studios hesitated to invest in unproven technology. It was only in 1926 that Warner Brothers signed a contract with Western Electric to license its technology under the name Vitaphone. That same year, William Fox inked deals with Theodore Case and Tri-Ergon that enabled his company to produce motion pictures with sound. In 1927, Fox Corporation entered into an agreement with Vitaphone and the Movietone sound system was born.

At the time Fox was a small player in the motion picture business and saw newsreels as a way of raising its profile. The company faced few competitors in the newsreel marketplace. The nature of the films allowed them to experiment with new techniques. In early 1927, they previewed sound motion picture recordings of Spanish performer Raquel Meller to gauge audience response. The first advertised public projection of a sound newsreel took place on April 30, 1927. The four-minute clip showed marching cadets from the West Point military academy. The popularity of the new medium grew after Fox’s cameras filmed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s departure from New York on May 20. A screening of the footage later that evening at the company’s flagship Roxy Theatre in Manhattan drew a packed house of over 6,000.

By the summer of 1927, Movietone crews travelled the United States capturing sights and sounds for the newsreels. They even went to Europe and filmed a speech by Italian leader Benito Mussolini. Likely the earliest sound on film recording of a sporting event was the Yale vs. Princeton intercollegiate football game played on November 12, 1927. A month later the cameras headed to Brooklyn to film a soccer match between the Nationals and Wanderers.

The teams competed in the American Soccer League (ASL), a professional circuit that began in 1921. Six years after forming, the level of play in the league was high and it attracted athletes from around the world. Over the course of the season, the two squads fielded players born in Austria, Canada, Egypt, England, Hungary, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States. Combined, the rosters of the teams featured seven future members of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Only two appeared in the December 18 match – Bob Millar and Johnny Nelson.

Other notable players in the match day squads included Brooklyn keeper Lajos Fischer who made nine appearances for the Hungarian National Team. Fischer’s teammate on the Wanderers, midfielder David Robertson, earned his only cap for the United States in a 6-1 rout of Canada on November 8, 1925. One of the brightest stars on the field that day was Brooklyn’s Jozsef Eisenhoffer. The versatile attacker scored seven goals in eight appearances for Hungary. He represented his native country at the 1924 Olympics and scored the winner in the team’s first round match against Poland. Later, he helped Olympic Marseilles capture the French Cup in 1935. After becoming the club’s manager, Eisenhoffer led them to the league championship in 1936-37.

Despite having some talented players, neither the Wanderers nor the Nationals were among the ASL’s top teams. In fact, both were decidedly mid-table squads. The 1927-28 season was Brooklyn’s sixth in the league and the team’s average finish was also sixth. The New York franchise was one of the ASL’s original members. After being twice sold, it was the club’s first season playing as the Nationals. The average league place under previous regimes was fifth. During the 1927-28 season the ASL played a split schedule. The top two teams from each half of the season advanced to the playoffs. The recorded match came at the end of the first stage of the season. Brooklyn sat in fourth place while New York struggled at the bottom of the standings. Despite a poor first half, the Nats improved their play in 1928 and went on to win the United States Open Cup, a competition often considered the national championship.

On December 18, 1927, the teams played on a frozen pitch in cold temperatures and a sometimes-biting wind. It was also the second of back-to-back games as both squads had played the day before against different clubs. A reported crowd of 3,000 braved the chill weather to attend the match. Most of the sound captured in the film comes from the reactions of fans.

Brooklyn attacked from the start, scoring in the fifth minute. The goal involved the two players on the pitch who later entered the Soccer Hall of Fame. National’s forward Bob Millar committed a foul, and the ensuing free kick was eventually headed home for the Wanderers by Johnny Nelson. Millar, who later coached the US Men’s National Team in the 1930 World Cup, won the US Open Cup four times. Nelson is the second all-time leading scorer in ASL history. Despite having his career cut short by a knee injury, he finished with 223 goals in 250 games. Only the legendary Archie Stark scored more league goals.

Wanderers had a few more chances in the first half but the score remained 1-0 at the break. Soon after the restart, the Nats evened the score. The home side regained the lead a few minutes later after converting a penalty. A New York goal in the sixty-fifth minute ended the scoring and the match finished a 2-2 draw.

The quality of the film is poor, and the sound is inconsistent. The film captures an uneventful match between unremarkable teams at the end of a mediocre half-season. Yet, it is a milestone in the history of soccer. In some ways it represents the first step toward the global televised spectacles we enjoy today.

The footage is part of the Movie Image Research Collections at the University of South Carolina.

Sources
Crosson, Seán. Sport and Film. Routledge, 2013.

Daily News, December 19, 1927.

Gomery, Douglas. The Coming of Sound. A History. Routledge, 2005.

Jose, Colin. The American Soccer League, 1921-1932. Scarecrow Press, 1988.

McKernan, Luke, “Sports Films,” in Cinema: The Beginnings and the Future, edited by Christopher Williams. University of Westminster Press, 1996.

McKernan, Luke, “Sports Films,” in Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, edited by Richard Abel. Routledge, 2004.

Moving Picture World

The Brooklyn Times Union, December 19, 1927.