Finding the original ASL
Posted on August 27, 2012 12:08 am
Perhaps the greatest single effort in expanding the knowledge of the history of soccer in the United States has been the work done by Colin Jose in uncovering the forgotten story of the original American Soccer League of the 1920s.
This league wasn’t entirely hidden. Things written about it at the time still existed on microfilm. But it was so obscured by decade after decade of later events being heaped on top of its that it had become virtually invisible before Colin went digging about 20 years ago and pulled it out from underneath the pile (the visibility hadn’t been improved any by an apparent desire by the second, 1933-83, version of the ASL to pretend that its predecessor had never happened). Colin’s work resulted in a book, titled American Soccer League, 1921-31, that was published in 1998. Here is what Colin wrote in the preface of that book:
“Back in 1969, I received from the American Soccer League of that time a list of the winners of the ASL championship. The list began with the winners of the 1933-34 season, the Kearny Irish-Americans. At the time, I thought nothing about it, but imagine my surprise when, many years later, in searching through microfilm of the New York Times of 1925 for details of the United States versus Canada international of that year, I found details of the American Soccer League. How could this be, I wondered, when according to the American Soccer League, the league began operating in 1933?
“I talked to a number of people, searched through what books there were on the history of the game in the United States, and discovered that yes, there was an American Soccer League before 1933, but no one seemed to know a great deal about it.
“Finally, I decided to find out when the league began and try to compile a list of the champions before 1933. I found that the league was formed, not in 1933, but twelve years earlier in 1921, and as my research progressed I realized that these forgotten early years of the American Soccer League represented perhaps the most important decade in American soccer to that time–a decade matched only in importance by the 17 years of the North American Soccer League in the 1970s and 1980s.
“In order to grasp its significance, not only to the history of soccer in the United States and Canada, but also its impact on the European game of that time, it became necessary to reconstruct the record of the ASL from its first games in 1921 until its collapse in chaos in 1932.”
Reconstructing that record is exactly what Colin did in the course of years of visits to libraries in numerous cities, particularly Fall River, Mass. American Soccer League, 1921-31 contains game-by-game records of every team in every season, plus statistical records of every player who ever played in the league, biographical sketches of more than 150 players and administrators, and box scores of more than 70 games between ASL teams and foreign teams.
In short, Colin unearthed quite a bit, but that’s not surprising considering what a determined researcher he is. For example, he uncovered the true facts concerning the six men repeatedly referred to erroneously as “British ex-pros” in the 1930 U.S. World Cup team, and he uncovered the fact that 1930s American star Billy Gonsalves, often referred to as William Gonsalves, was really named Adelino. Whether the subject is wide or narrow, Colin has never been satisfied with the conventional wisdom.
Thank God for Colin and his discovery. It seems less likely that someone in Captain Kirk’s time researching the North American Soccer League will have to have a similar “Eureka” moment, but we should not assume anything and preserve everything we can.
I now have to find that book!!
Thank you Roger!
I have it, but it’s out of print and fairly expensive. I got it on Amazon not long ago (for $54). If you want data without a lot of words, and if you are okay with a heavy book that could have been far fewer pages than it was, it’s nice to have.
When dealing with American soccer of many decades ago, hard data is not such a bad thing (and I say that despite the fact that my own books are largely prose). A great deal of what was written about American soccer 100 years ago is phrased in maddeningly vague language. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve looked at a page and silently screamed: “Don’t tell me that someone ‘scored goals at an impressive clip that season.’ Tell me how many!” Or: “Don’t tell me that ‘the game was scheduled so as to take advantage of balmy weather.’ Tell me the damned date!”
Numerical information of the sort that Colin provides in this book can be a very welcome thing.
Oh, no question, it’s an invaluable resource of info that would have been lost. I just would have loved to have been able to sit down and actually read and enjoy it for a weekend. As it is, you go to it if you need to look something up.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Soccer-League-Colin-Jose/dp/0810834294/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346082218&sr=8-1&keywords=colin+jose
Wow, that’s pricy :/
Agreed. The company that published it, Scarecrow Press of Lanham, Md., markets mostly to libraries rather than to general readers, and its prices tend to be quite high. It also published the Encyclopedia of American Soccer History that Colin, David Litterer and I wrote in 2001, and none of us was happy with the price ($65). Our more recent books are all with a less pricy publisher.
It’s humbling — writing a book on MLS was so much easier! I only knew of one person in the book who had passed away.
I feel sorry for future sports historians who shall have to untangle the ugly web of different indoor leagues calling themselves “MISL”.
Three cheers for Colin and all those who have helped recover the ghosts of soccer’s past!
The book is a monument of achievement considering the hours needed to cross-check references of names, spelling, teams, players, etc.
I do echo kenntomasch on one thing though. It would be great to have a complementary narrative on the ASL (another shameless request to Roger to write another book for the rest of us to read and enjoy…even if he has said that Corner Offices and Corner Kicks was his last one). While there is no one definitive story, it would be great to have some of the voices woven together and the different story-lines fleshed out.
RIP Sam Foulds and Dave Wangerin (two others who could have written such a book).
I’m not sure how much there is to be said about the original ASL that hasn’t already been said by now. At the time that Colin’s ASL book was published in 1998, the only account of the league that I know of in print was a four-page section in Sam Foulds’ 1979 book, “America’s Soccer Heritage.” Since then, there have been quite a few more.
Colin’s book includes several prose sections beyond the statistical tables. There is a six-page history of the league, a two-page article on the American Menace, an introductory page at the start of each season’s tables and 30 pages of biographical sketches. David Wangerin had a 35-page chapter on the original ASL in his 2006 history of American soccer, “Soccer in a Football World.” He then had a 35-page biographical sketch of Thomas W. Cahill, the league’s founder and driving force, in his 2011 book “Distant Corners.” When Colin, David Litterer and I wrote our “Encyclopedia of American Soccer History” in 2001, we included a three-page article on the league and more than 30 entries on various teams and individuals from the league. My 2005 book “Rangers, Rovers and Spindles” has a 30-page chapter on the league, focusing particularly on the Fall River Marksmen. My 2009 book “Corner Offices and Corner Kicks” has a 32-page chapter on Bethlehem Steel’s ASL years. My history articles on Big Soccer have included nearly a dozen on subjects related to the original ASL, with more to come. David Litterer’s website, The American Soccer History Archives, has quite a bit on the original ASL, as does Dan Morrison’s Bethlehem Steel website.
So, there is a lot of stuff about the original ASL out there. The original ASL is no longer the unplowed ground that it was when Colin was doing his research. I’m not sure how much I could write about the original ASL that wouldn’t be rehashing things that have already been written.
David Wangerin’s writings, both on this subject and others, are particularly excellent, I think.
I’ll add another plug Roger — I think there is more to tell, particularly focusing on the three New York clubs, their connection to Central Europe and the Hakoah players who were recruited to play for the Wanderers and the (first) Giants.
As far as I can tell, the ASL was the third professional soccer league in the world, with Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary following shorty thereafter. Unlike Boston or some of the other ASL clubs that imported Scots and English players, the New York clubs established a pipeline to the then powerful leagues of central Europe and became an attractive destination, particularly for Jewish players.
From the newspaper accounts that survive, these derbys were intense, especially in 1926 and 1927, not only because of the proximity of the teams, but also because so many of the players, now on opposing sides, had once played together. That bad blood spilled over too. Sparta’s tour in 1926 is especially interesting, including two hard fought games with Brooklyn, one of which ended in a brawl.
There are some great stories. Maurice Vandeweghe, who owned the original Giants, faced immigration charges when his chauffeur got caught smuggling players in from Canada. You’ve written about the colorful Charles Stoneham already, but his efforts to remake the ASL in the image of MLB, triggering the soccer war, is also interesting. And while much has been written about the soccer war, his efforts to get the league’s teams to move into MLB parks under MLB ownership has gotten far less attention.
You’re earlier book is a must read IMO, but as others have noted, I do think with Jose’s research there is more narrative to the ASL that can be told.
Sounds like there might be enough stuff for another book. One thing that I find interesting is the way that the ASL expansion at the start of the 1924 season led (via the “American Menace,” the Hakoah tours, the threat of FIFA sanctions and the Soccer War) to the demise of the ASL in the early 1930s. Did the ASL plant the seeds of its own destruction? I have neither the time nor the energy to embark on another big research project. However, one of the purposes of this series of historical articles on Big Soccer is to encourage other people to pick up the thread.
Thanks to triplet1 for saying more clearly what I was trying to get at. I did not mean to say that there was not already a number of accounts of the ASL. No disrespect intended in any way. Think of my and triplet1′s request as “thirsty for more”
Let’s hope, as Roger says, that others will carry on the flame since there are so many additional stories and angles of this country’s soccer past. Thanks to those who have already uncovered and written so much.
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