Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting)

by David Wangerin

  The unit was commonly referred to as the All-America Soccer Football Club - the phrase 'All-America' had become immensely popular through its use in college football, whose patriarchs selected a paper dream team each winter - but home-grown interest in these All-Americans was not nearly as keen. The team set sail in July 1916 from Hoboken, New Jersey, amid profound apathy and scepticism from the sporting public. 'So dubious were American followers of soccer generally as to the outcome of the enterprise,' wrote one newspaper, that hardly a handful of enthusiasts gathered at the Pier to bid the team good-by and wish it luck.' Once in Scandinavia, though, interest blossomed. The Swedes, whose humble national team had been competing as far back as the 1908 Olympics, were drawn to the presence of such exotic guests, and supported the tour in numbers far greater than their visitors were accustomed to at home.

  Bolstered by a strenuous fitness regimen that included games of baseball on deck (leaving one to wonder how many balls the team might have blasted into the sea), the Americans arrived in Stockholm match-fit and eager. Aboard ship, and by the margin of one vote, they had elected their first captain: Thomas Swords, whose bustling, energetic style was perhaps indicative of the premium the team placed on speed and stamina. The only Fall River player on the tour, Swords had been on the losing side in the Challenge Cup final against Bethlehem Steel three months earlier, but would lead his Rovers to further final appearances in each of the next two years. Swords also claimed the distinction of scoring what has come to be recognised as America's first official international goal in the second match of the tour, a 3-2 victory over Sweden witnessed by King Gustav V and a crowd of 15,000.

  The manner of this historic triumph was not especially well received. None of Sweden's 37 previous matches seem to have prepared them for the Americans' all-consuming desire for victory, manifested in such unsporting tactics as stalling to take a throw-in, playing defensively to protect a lead and even shouting for the ball. There were other clashes of footballing culture as well. The US's high-tempo, ball-chasing style seemed outmoded to a country which had grown accustomed to a less frenzied passing game. In defeating Orgryte 2-1 the All-Americans were roundly criticised for playing in the style of beginners, or belonging to a more primitive era.

  A few, though, looked at things differently. The noted Gothenburg sportswriter Carl Linde observed how much ground the American forwards covered and how their sheer willpower often compensated for a lack of technique. Linde claimed this style represented 'a new way of playing' and that the visitors 'form a very dangerous team, mainly through their primitive brutality, through their speed and through their will to win at all costs'. Another writer remarked that such energetic play made the home side look as though they were engaged in 'exercise for older gents'.

  Other manifestations of 'primitive brutality' were less welcome. Apparently incensed by their side's defeat - which had come in the dying minutes - some of the Orgryte fans attacked the American players as they left the pitch, pinning goalkeeper George Tintle of Brooklyn to the fence and kicking him. Half-back Charles Ellis of Brooklyn floored one assailant on the way to the dressing room. Trouble followed the team back to its hotel when one ruffian jumped aboard Cahill's limousine and attempted to make off with the secretary's prized American flag. The Daily Eagle noted the angry response:

  Calling to the chauffeur to stop, Cahill leaped out and, pursuing the vandal, delivered some well-aimed blows with his cane. He was making good headway toward the complete annihilation of his opponent when policemen with drawn swords interfered and drove Cahill back. The crowd gathered again and the Americans were lucky in making their escape.

  The team refused to play another match in Gothenburg. King Gustav, said to have been 'vexed' at the incident, ordered a special commission to 'investigate and punish the offenders'. Cahill acknowledged his team had been treated well everywhere else, and candidly analysed its strengths and weaknesses. 'We were outclassed by the Swedish players on straight football. It was American grit, pluck and endurance that won,' he claimed. 'No great football stars were members of our team, but we had the pluckiest aggregation ever banded together.' The manager offered his highest praise for Norway, who in 19 outings had yet to record an international victory but had drawn 1-1 with the All-Americans in what Cahill considered the 'fastest and most exciting' game of the tour. The attendance of 20,000 was one of the largest crowds ever to gather for a sporting event in the country.

  The Americans lost only one of their six matches and their robust, spirited play left an indelible impression. 'We have seen the fresh, breezy rushes of your men,' Kornerup wrote to Cahill - with further understatement -'and learnt to admire them and their tactics on the football field.' (The Swedes also developed an admiration for baseboll, which the Americans had demonstrated against whatever local opposition they could find, impressing the king sufficiently enough for him to introduce it into Stockholm's schools.) The hosts reimbursed the USFA with $6,500 for expenses and the players - ostensibly amateur to a man - divided $1,000 in `living expenses' between them.

  Cahill returned twice more to Scandinavia, taking charge of teams representing Bethlehem and St Louis once the war had ended, but his pioneering initiative came to little. It was almost eight years before the All-America team kicked another ball - and 78 before the US faced Sweden again.

  If America's first international outings had been understandably sparse, the 1920s offered good reasons to hope for a sustained and successful participation on the world stage. For one thing, there was now buoyant international competition - initially at the Olympics and then at the World Cup. For another, the rising powers of the world game for the first time included teams from outside Europe - specifically, the Americas. And third, the decade was one of the most promising, albeit fractured and stormy, in US domestic soccer. But it proved to be a lost decade for the national team, and the chance to flourish on what was a relatively uncluttered stage would never come again.

  Mysteriously weighed down by apathy, the USFA did not send a soccer team to the Antwerp Olympics of 1920, a decision that incensed Guss Manning and deepened the animosity between himself and Cahill. The secretary claimed only $149 had been raised of the $10,000 the trip would require. Given the often farcical nature of the 1920 soccer tournament this was perhaps just as well, but it was disappointing all the same.

  By the time of the 1924 Paris Games the American Soccer League was in full swing, and squabbling with the USFA. But Cahill, dismissed as secretary by Peter Peel, could only watch helplessly as George Matthew Collins, the soccer editor of the Boston Daily Globe, was appointed Olympics team manager. ('He is of Scotch birth,' Cahill wrote to a friend, `and has a "burr" that would make Harry Lauder jealous.') While the thought of a journalist running a national team might seem ludicrous - except, perhaps, to journalists - the responsibilities of Collins and his contemporaries were perfunctory. Hours were whiled away writing meticulous reports for the masters back home and making speeches at formal banquets. Usually a `coach' accompanied the manager, but he was chiefly concerned with conditioning and fitness. For 1924 this role was filled by George Burford, the 'physical director of the Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA'. Burford's credentials were not entirely irrelevant - he had helped to introduce soccer into Boston's public schools and while working in Poland had been named trainer of its aborted 1920 Olympic soccer entry - but the players were largely left to work out tactics for themselves. Little would change, in the US at least, for decades.

  The same applied to the absurdly cumbersome process of squad selection. For 1924 the USFA solicited nominations from club officials, sportswriters, coaches and nearly everyone else prepared to offer an opinion. It then selected teams from this list for a series of 'tryout' matches, basing its final selection on personal prejudice and political favours as much as performance. The final squad was given no preparatory matches; their first appearance as a unit was the day they sailed to France.

  They were hardly the best team the nation had to offer -
only one player, goalkeeper Jimmy Douglas, came from the ASL - but to the USFA this was much less important than fielding a resolutely amateur team, even though by the mid-1920s it had become clear that Olympic soccer was being contested by nations with differing interpretations of amateurism. The fact that FIFA, which initially threw its weight behind the Games as a means of contesting a world championship, had already begun to contemplate an 'open' tournament suggested it had tired of the need to make a distinction.

  The American taxonomy was strict: no payments to players, not even broken-time money in lieu of lost wages (the issue over which the British associations broke with FIFA once more in 1928). Douglas may have kept goal for the Newark Skeeters, but on an amateur contract. Eleven other clubs were represented in the squad, the most prominent among them Fleischer Yarn of Philadelphia, winners of the inaugural National Amateur Cup the previous year. There was also a rare early instance of west coast representation in the form of Dr Aage Brix, a forward with the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

  In Paris, Europe once again shuddered at the ruthless American tactics. The French mood had been soured by America's failure to support the country's claims for war reparations against Germany (as well as the US's shock defeat of France in the rugby competition the day before) and the Americans' match with Estonia did little to sweeten their disposition. A penalty from Fleischer's centre-forward, Andy Stradan, gave the US an early first-half lead, but they chose to protect rather than build on it. Amid catcalls and flying elbows they held on, though the unfortunate Dr Brix punctured a kidney to end his brief international career.

  The narrow victory sent the Americans into the first round proper, where they faced the more sobering proposition of Uruguay, a team with an altogether more liberal attitude to amateurism and who had organised an extensive European tour to prepare themselves for the tournament. Against the US, the eventual gold medallists scored twice in the first quarter-hour and once more before half-time, coasting to a 3-0 win and prompting the New York Times to claim that `no other team has shown anything like the same mastery of the game'. Collins took solace in the moral high ground. `We did not win the championship of the world at soccer,' he noted in his report, `but we did leave behind the impression that we played for the love of the game and sport only.' They had, in fact, played creditably, with the Times acknowledging that the scoreline `was far from being a disaster'.

  It also reflected a degree of tactical pragmatism. At half-time the team had abandoned the orthodox 2-3-5 'pyramid' system and pushed one of their full-backs into midfield. Uruguayan raids were thus thwarted by frequent offside decisions (the law at the time requiring three defenders between attacker and goal) and by the zonal marking which the Americans resorted to in midfield. The widespread use of such destructive tactics led the game's rulers to change the offside law the following year.

  Chaste amateurs or not, the Uruguayans had produced one of the most powerful and exciting teams the game had yet seen, and four years later in Amsterdam they took gold again, their efforts aided by an extensive tour of the US the year before. Uruguay won ten of their 14 matches on American soil, though the quality of their football was rather less apparent than their irritability. The third match, against Newark, was abandoned after a frenzied pitch invasion which forced the referee to depart under police escort. The visitors, who had not endeared themselves to the crowd by turning up half an hour late, complained of biased officiating, but Newark's owner claimed they were piqued because his club had taken an early lead.

  The matter proved embarrassing enough to gain the attention of the Uruguayan consul-general in New York, Don Jose Richling, who claimed the violence had been precipitated by differing interpretations of the laws. 'It is closer to American football than the European brand,' he said, promising the team's behaviour would improve or he would send them home ('I have explained the difference to them and they will play the American rules in the future'). But his words had little effect. A few weeks later, a match in Boston was abandoned after another fracas which left two of the Wonder Workers unconscious on the ground, and police were again summoned to break up a pitch invasion.

  Uruguay met a number of ASL and `all-star' aggregations as far west as St Louis that summer, but the one team they did not encounter was their American equivalent, largely because it hadn't yet been organised. Once again the US team for 1928 was designed by committee, and once again it reached its destination without playing a competitive match. But it was, of course, rigidly amateur, tightly conforming to the IOC mandate of two years earlier which outlawed broken-time payments. American officials may have patted themselves on the back for upholding the honour of amateurism, but the new regulation was far from universally heeded, and there was little sporting glory for the 11 Americans who found themselves drawn against Argentina, another South American collection of proto-professionals.

  The USFA president, Andrew Brown, chose one of the association's vice-presidents, Elmer Schroeder of Philadelphia, to manage the Olympic team. Schroeder's interest in the game may have been wholehearted, but his appointment rankled with many. The day after it was made the USFA treasurer, expecting the position for himself, resigned in protest, while an annoyed Cahill declined an invitation to serve as an assistant. With the soccer war only months away, Brown's regime was already showing signs of the organisational incompetence that would plague the association's frail existence (twice he sought to resign, only to be talked out of it). Even the relatively straightforward task of selecting a team seemed beyond it. The Fall River Globe highlighted the case of Harry Farrell, an ASL forward who had gone to Paris with the 1924 team:

  According to information circulated in soccer circles Farrell wrote to and received from the Olympic Committee permission to absent himself from any and all trials, the official communications apparently indicating in clear language that Farrell was so far ahead of any other nominee that his selection was practically assured. But the committee on selections, when it met at St Louis - if it had not already compiled its team slate beforehand - failed to place Farrell, and the reason given was - despite its own official permission - that since Farrell did not participate in the Olympic trials his selection could not be approved.

  Participation in Amsterdam lasted all of one match. By half-time, the Americans trailed 4-0, and this time there would be no tactical innovations to help keep the score down. Though an injury forced Argentina to play a man short for much of the second half, they still cantered to an 11-2 win. One version of why the unfortunate US goalkeeper, Albert Cooper of Trenton (an apprentice stage electrician for the Metropolitan Opera), let in so many goals that afternoon was that he had been rendered semi-conscious by a shot from point-blank range early in the match. Other reports, bizarrely, claim he was the best player in the team. But the embarrassing defeat, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, had hardly been the fault of Cooper or any of his team-mates:

  No one ever believed the aggregation sent across could beat any well organized eleven. Thrown together from various sections of the United States, sent aboard ship without even one practice game to weld them together, managed by a man who apparently did not know his stuff and pitted against teams like Uruguay ... our puny, half-baked outfit was doomed in advance. Until America changes its amateur' definition to conform to European standards we cannot hope to battle on even terms; and the sending of teams to Europe under conditions like the 1928 team faced is a pure waste of time and money.

  Argentina took the silver medal, behind their bitter rivals Uruguay. The 11-2 win remains the most one-sided in American Olympic history, although in decades to come the record would be sternly tested. Yet it marked the beginning rather than the end of Schroeder's spell as a national manager. Not even his election to the presidency of the USFA in 1932 could keep him out of the job.

  He had to wait eight years to try to redeem his Olympic fortunes. With FIFA pushing for broken-time payments to be permitted - a stance opposed by the IOC and the USFA - and many nations finding
it difficult to field a team during the Depression, no soccer was played at the Los Angeles Games of 1932. Some in the USFA regarded the amateur debate as merely an excuse for those objecting to the expense involved in reaching California, but the staging of the first World Cup two years earlier had also diluted the significance of the football tournament.

  For the next few decades, American Olympic teams continued to suffer for their amateur rectitude (among other self-inflicted wounds) but the establishment of the World Cup offered a more suitable challenge. Though the 1930 tournament was as noteworthy for the nations that didn't participate as those that did - England and Scotland were still out of FIFA, and Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Switzerland all stayed away - it at least made no pretension towards an amateur code. With the ASL firmly established as a professional entity, the USFA could at last dip into its sizeable pool of talent.

  But the tournament came too late for Tom Cahill, probably more deserving than anyone of taking the team to Uruguay. After resigning as USFA secretary he had turned his attention towards developing the game in such soccer backwaters as Tennessee and Texas. The following year found him back in St Louis, attempting to revive its flagging professional league, which one local paper claimed had'vanished into an apparently bottomless pit of indifference' by 1932. The country's changing attitudes and economic woes proved insurmountable, and Cahill, now in his late 60s, faced a desperate challenge. By the end of the decade, the St Louis League was no more and the 'father of American soccer' had faded into obscurity. 'I am sorry to say the outlook for soccer football, is, in my opinion, not bright ... with respect to its ever becoming a major professional pastime in this country,' he told a St Louis columnist in 1946. 'Years ago, we missed the boat.'