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

by David Wangerin

  Cahill lived to see the US defeat England in 1950- he died on September 29, 1951, an event which merited all of 62 words in the New York Times - and could take some credit for his country's World Cup debut. He and Guss Manning had advised FIFA of the US's intention to field a team in January 1929, with the soccer war still ablaze and parties on both sides haemorrhaging money. By the time the squad boarded the SS Munargo for Uruguay in June 1930, things had been patched up, but the financial consequences were severe. Without the hosts' offer to underwrite the travelling expenses of the invited teams it is unlikely the US would have appeared.

  The players chosen to make the trip were not - as many writers who should know better later claimed - former British professionals squeezing out an extra few years' wages overseas. It is true some had been born in Britain and played for clubs there, but only one had arrived in the United States as a professional. Liverpool-born George Moorhouse had made two first-team appearances for Tranmere Rovers in the early 1920s, but he had played 200 times in the ASL and finished his career in America, dying on Long Island at the age of 42. Those two appearances in the Third Division (North) represented the total British professional experience in the US team.

  Of the squad's 16 players, six had been born in England or Scotland, and a few did later return to Britain. Fife-born full-back Alex Wood spent time with Leicester City and Nottingham Forest, but then returned to Indiana where he had grown up, not far from where his American career had started with the Bricklayers of Chicago. The most famous of the foreign-born contingent was Edinburgh-born Bart McGhee, whose father had captained Hibernian and taken them to the Scottish Cup final in 1887 (he later became manager of Hearts). The younger McGhee emigrated to America some time after his father's arrival in 1910 and at 19 was playing in New York. By 1930 McGhee had become one of the stars of Charley Stoneham's New York Nationals, with more than 300 league appearances to his name.

  But American-born players dominated the squad, and the ASL to which most of them belonged had developed them as capably as the imports. The captain, Tommy Florie of the New Bedford Whalers, was born in New Jersey to Italian parents and had scored 95 league goals. The goalkeeper, Newark's Jimmy Douglas, had turned professional after the 1924 Olympics and signed for Fall River in 1927. Rather more surprising was the inclusion of the 20-year-old striker Bert Patenaude, who had scored 57 times in two seasons with the Marksmen. His arrival was timely, since the prolific Archie Stark had opened a garage in Massachusetts and chose to stay at home. But a new Babe Ruth of Soccer was about to emerge in the form of Fall River's Billy Gonsalves. While Gonsalves's glory days did not arrive until the ASL and soccer had fallen into obscurity, he remains one of the heroes of the American game, and in the eyes of some still the greatest player the country has produced. 'As a reporter, I always asked the foreign players the inevitable question,' Dent McSkimming later claimed, 'and en total they agreed that Gonsalves would win a place and be a star in any team in the world.'

  It is not difficult to see why. Gonsalves - christened Adelino by his Madeiran parents, nicknamed Billy by his English-speaking team-mates - was well over six feet tall and nearly 15 stone, and could strike a ball with breathtaking ferocity. Yet his ball skills and deceptive speed (in the unfortunate words of one Chicago sportswriter he moved `like a lightweight despite his 200 pounds') belied his sturdy frame. Most remember him as a goalscorer, but in truth he was not especially prolific. Far more impressive were his close control and passing skills, and the intelligent and unselfish positional play which created goals for others.

  Gonsalves played in Challenge Cup finals 11 times in 15 years, with clubs from four different states. Though such triumphs were largely ignored overseas, his appearances against foreign touring teams were not. Playing with a badly swollen ankle, he scored a hat-trick in a 4-3 win over Celtic at Boston's Fenway Park in 1931, two of his strikes coming from long range. Approached on more than one occasion to play abroad, he never went, and so unwittingly consigned himself to little more than a footnote in the notoriously unsympathetic annals of American sport.

  Chosen to look after the intriguing mixture of native and Scottish-born talent were an American and a Scot. Wilfred Cummings, the manager, had been a player and coach in Chicago and, perhaps more importantly, treasurer of the USFA for several years. Bob Millar, the coach, had cut his managerial teeth in the ASL with Indiana Flooring and the New York Nationals after an exceptional playing career that included a stop at virtually every top team in the east. For once, the coach's role was not limited to callisthenics and rub-downs. While Cummings preened his blazer, Millar cast his mind towards tactics. Claiming the Uruguayans represented America's only obstacle to victory, he told one reporter how even they could be overcome:

  They are strategists, fast and game but they have that weakness of tiring themselves out, and we are going to be strategists with them. Just as a runner measures pace and lets the other fellow run as he wishes in the early part, we are going to estimate what is the winning pace over an hour and keep to it.

  Millar was not given the chance to test his hypothesis, but his team acquitted themselves well, both on the pitch and with the public. Welcomed by a sizeable crowd in Montevideo (on what was said to have been the 92nd consecutive day of rain in the capital), Cummings wrote that a 'battery of cameramen, cartoonists and sportswriters dogged each and every individual of our party, seeking firsthand information as to our football status and abilities'. It wasn't long before the French contingent - presumably with memories of 1924 in mind - derisively branded the team 'shot-putters' for their emphasis on strength rather than technique. Had 5ft 3in Davie Brown not been ruled out of the squad through injury, their perspective might have changed.

  As with most of the other nations, the Americans arrived in Uruguay not knowing which teams they would play, or where. The number of countries that refused invitations or declined at the last minute had forced the organisers to rethink their plans for a knockout competition. Hastily, the 13 nations that did turn up were put into four groups. Chosen as one of the four seeds, the US thus avoided Uruguay and Argentina, considered the two strongest sides. Instead they faced the less formidable Paraguay, and Belgium, a modest amateur team with a code so strict its star player, Raymond Braine, had been suspended for the unseemly act of opening a cafe.

  Uruguay's miserable autumn had delayed the completion of its showpiece Centenary Stadium, so the early games were played in the two venues where the Americans had been training. At Central Park, the home of Nacional, a crowd of 18,500 (estimated by Cummings to have included 'some 80-odd' Americans) endured a pre-match snow shower to watch the US play Belgium, one of two matches on the first day of competition. Encouraged by a wet, sticky pitch of which many an ASL club would have been proud, the US were nevertheless 'struck with nerves' for the first 20 minutes. Just before half-time, though, Gonsalves thumped a shot against the post and McGhee netted the rebound. This helped to settle the team, and captain Florie scored a second before halftime with the Belgians vainly appealing for offside. Patenaude headed into an empty net for the third.

  It was a comfortable win (Cummings noted toward the end of the match that his charges 'were wisely saving themselves'), and one characteristically achieved through strength and stamina. The Belgians were unable to cope with America's secure defence and incisive passes out to the flanks. A sympathetic referee may also have played a part. Cummings noted that the man in charge, the Argentinian Jose Macias, 'interpreted the rules more to European and our own standards', seeing fit to add that the 'young man was absolutely the class of the refereeing contingent, both in ability and dress'.

  To Cummings's delight, the well-groomed arbiter returned for the US's next match. Paraguay were a much more formidable proposition than Belgium: they had recently beaten Uruguay and finished runnersup in the Copa America, and none of their players had been banned for running a cafe. But there is nothing in Cummings's report to suggest his charges were overawed ('the boys were on edge,
simply raring to go') and within 15 minutes Patenaude had scored twice without reply. A secondhalf goal completed his hat-trick, the first in the competition's history."` Paraguay spurned chances and Aurelio Gonzales's header hit the bar, but the US had again won largely on merit, to the delight of a crowd keen to see South American rivals beaten. Flair may not have been much in evidence - the New York Times reported that the team had played with a great confidence and in a business-like way' - though Cummings insisted his side had been 'flashy' at times. It hardly mattered: the Americans were through to the semi-finals and, stylish or not, it had been no fluke.

  Now they faced the team which had handed them their worst-ever defeat, on a pitch twice as large as most in the ASL. Work on the Centenary Stadium had been completed and the Americans found themselves confronted by a playing surface which Cummings claimed measured 138 by 100 yards, 'eight yards over maximum length, according to the rules'. For a team relying on quick breaks out of defence, this was a considerable handicap, and against Argentina it proved insurmountable.

  The Argentinians were a skilful attacking force, with considerable bite in the form of their notorious centre-half, Luisito Monti, whose sting had been apparent from the second minute of his World Cup debut when his tackle on Lucien Laurent left the Frenchman scarcely able to continue. No one could have blamed the Americans for feeling overawed by the occasion; certainly they had never encountered a crowd like the 73,000 who were about to watch them. Cummings noted that the teams arrived at the stadium under military escort and 'everybody, including the players, was frisked before entering the stadium gates'. Yet he claimed that only the referee, Belgium's John Langenus, 'appeared nervous and shaky ... the 22 players seemed as cool as cucumbers'. Langenus was a respected match official with a long career ahead of him, but he offered the Americans little protection. Centre-half Raphael Tracey of St Louis injured his leg badly enough to be removed from the game and Providence striker Andy Auld was kicked in the face so hard he finished the match with a cloth stuffed in his bloodied mouth. Worst of all, goalkeeper Jimmy Douglas twisted his ankle early on and hobbled the rest of the way.

  Argentina took a 1-0 half-time lead (Cummings claimed 'the ball failed to bounce on the newly-sodden turf' and termed the goal 'quite undeserved') but in the second half the eight healthy Americans lost their way on the enormous pitch. Three late goals sailed past the incapacitated Douglas as Argentina coasted to a 6-1 win. The US had to be content with third place in the tournament, on the basis of their superior goal difference to the other beaten semi-finalists, Yugoslavia. As any fan knows, they have yet to do better.

  The small number of entries, the size of their semi-final defeat and their performance in subsequent World Cups have tended to minimise the achievements of America's 1930 entry. Yet they comfortably beat two solid teams and might easily have run Argentina closer. Certainly they were not the third-best team in the world, but equally clearly they had developed to the point where they could compete on the international stage. Sadly, that solid foundation was left to rot. There would be no further US internationals of any description until the next World Cup, by which time the ASL had been completely reorganised and was nothing like the league that had whisked top professionals away from Europe.

  The quality of the original ASL is reflected not just in the admirable performance of the 1930 team, but also in the interest foreign clubs took in its players. While Gonsalves resolutely stayed at home, Kilmarnockborn Jimmy Brown, an ever-present in Uruguay, joined Manchester United in 1932. Many of the league's British mercenaries returned home to sign for big clubs, including Tom Devlin, Bobby Ballantyne and Steve Smith (all Aberdeen), Johnny Jaap (Hearts) and Bob McAuley (Rangers). Also heading overseas was a Montreal-born goalkeeper, Joe Kennaway, who had been capped by Canada. Kennaway, with seven ASL seasons to his name, played so well against a touring Celtic team that he was signed to replace John Thomson in 1931 after the Scottish goalkeeper's tragic death in the Old Firm match. He stayed in Glasgow for eight years and even made one appearance for Scotland before returning to Providence after the Second World War.

  The legacy of the second ASL would be far less inspiring. By 1933 the Depression had eroded much of the bedrock on which the game existed: the mills, foundries, mines and other lodestones of immigrant labour. Yet in spite of dwindling resources the US made it to Italy in 1934. Schroeder had become the USFA's first American-born president and had learned from the inept Olympic showing in Amsterdam. The Philadelphia German-Americans, which he also managed, claimed the National Amateur Cup in 1933 and 1934, and went on to win the ASL in 1935 and the Challenge Cup in 1936. Schroeder now added managing the World Cup squad to his list of duties, choosing as his coach David Gould, a Scot who happened to be an assistant coach at his old university.

  Qualifying for the 1934 World Cup was beset by confusion not only among the more numerous European entries - several of which subsequently withdrew - but also in the Americas, where it should have been simpler since only Cuba, Haiti, Mexico and the US (belatedly) entered. The Cubans advanced over Haiti in a three match-series in Port-auPrince and progressed to another three-match series in Mexico, where they were beaten. Mexico were now required to take on the US and, for reasons known only to FIFA, played off in Rome just three days before the opening match of the tournament.

  The USFA had granted its team a number of warm-up matches - one of them a 4-0 drubbing by an ASL selection which featured a hat-trick from the snubbed Archie Stark - but it sailed to Naples with just four members of the 1930 squad: Gonsalves (now playing in St Louis), Florie (Pawtucket), Moorhouse (New York) and Scottish-born Jimmy Gallagher (Cleveland). The club most heavily represented was, predictably, Schroeder's German-Americans, most of whom were amateurs. That only one of them got to play hints strongly at the politicking which undoubtedly influenced the selection process.

  The star of the team turned out to be an amateur from the other side of the state: Aldo Donelli, known to all as Buff in homage to his hero, Buffalo Bill. Twice Donelli's Heidelberg club had won the National Amateur Cup - once over the enchantingly named La Flamme Cobblers of New Bedford - and he scored five times in the one-sided 1929 final. Contrary to some sources Donelli was born not in Italy but in Morgan, Pennsylvania. He was also a college football star, and it was not unusual for him to divide his weekends between the two sports until his gridiron eligibility at Duquesne University ended in 1929.

  By 1934 Donelli the soccer player had joined the Curry Silver Tops of Pittsburgh, and he drove the length of Pennsylvania to attend the decisive tryout match between an eastern select team and, predictably, Schroeder's club team. Few expected him to be more than a squad player, but Gonsalves in particular lobbied hard for him to play (some accounts even claim he threatened to quit unless Donelli was picked). Both players lined up against Mexico and, with Benito Mussolini watching alongside the American ambassador, Buffalo Bill upstaged Babe Ruth, scoring all four goals in a 4-2 victory.

  Mexico were still a few years away from becoming North America's dominant force. After making a curious international entrance by playing six games against Guatemala in 1923, their national team had gone into hibernation until the 1928 Olympics, and at the 1930 World Cup they lost all three games by emphatic margins. In Rome, the New York Times reported, the Tricolores'appeared to be technically superior to the Americans, but they were of much slighter build and were obliged to yield to the more vigorous game of their heavier opponents'. So began competition with what would become America's fiercest and most frequent rival.

  FIFA had chosen a knockout format for the surviving 16 teams, so while the luckless Mexicans returned home the Americans were guaranteed nothing beyond another 90 minutes. They found themselves paired with Italy, who had also been required to win a qualifying match - on home soil, naturally - against Greece. The hosts enjoyed other advantages too, particularly the fascist policy of oriundi which had given dual nationality to South American players of Italian descent. This allowed Luisito Mon
ti, among others, to exchange his Argentinian stripes for Italian blue. Both Monti and Raimundo Orsi, a member of Argentina's 1928 Olympic team, lined up against the Americans in Rome.

  The decline of the ASL and the USFA's decision to send a team liberally sprinkled with amateurs left the Americans in no position to compete with the fascist-backed azzurri. Buoyed by a partisan crowd and compelled by the ominous presence of Il Duce in his yachting cap the Italians galloped to a 7-1 win, with Donelli again the lone US scorer ('Only the fine goal-tending of Julius Hjulian of Chicago kept the score as low as it was,' claimed the New York Times). Once more the Schroeder regime had been found wanting. Scotty Nilsen, the Norwegian-born US forward, confided to one reporter:

  In our two games at Rome, we scarcely knew what positions we were playing. Half-backs were trying to play forward; an outside-left was at outside-right; we had to pull Gonsalves back to centre-half because we didn't have a regular man at that position, and things were pretty much messed up.

  Oddly, those two games proved to be Donelli's only appearances in a US jersey. In spite of offers to remain in Italy (Napoli, among others, craved his signature) he turned his back on soccer altogether. His greatest fame came not as an international goalscorer, but as a professional and college gridiron coach.

  Participation in two World Cups had done little to arrest American soccer's declining appeal, with neither tournament near enough to catch the attention of a country gripped by more indigenous pastimes. The New York Times even headlined one of its World Cup reports US Soccer Squad Back After Successful Tour, attaching considerable weight to victories in friendlies with German teams after the defeat in Rome. Having barely survived the Depression, the USFA remained perilously close to collapse. Receipts for Challenge Cup ties, which had been as high as $113,000 at the peak of the ASL's popularity, dropped to below $37,000 by 1937, leaving the association's share at less than $5,000. Schroeder's motion to levy a ten-cent registration fee was passed unanimously in 1933, but there were only about 50,000 affiliated players in the country.