The Rise and Fall of Professional Soccer in Holyoke Massachusetts, USA

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century, the city of Holyoke Massachusetts and surrounding communities had a strong tradition of playing soccer, so much so that in 1921 one club was convinced to try and make it in the country's first major professional league. I argue that the experiment failed mainly due to financial reasons brought on by an inability to draw fans to watch the team play. The cause of this failure was not necessarily because soccer was seen as un-American but rather because it was too closely identified with a single ethnic group – British Protestants.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Roger Allaway and Steven Apostolov for their generous comments on a previous draft of the article. I am also grateful to the staff and volunteers at the Holyoke Public Library History Room and Archives for their help. A Visioning Grant from the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts provided funding for some of the research in this article.

Notes

1. The ASL opened with eight clubs: Philadelphia Football Club, Jersey City Celtics, Coats Football Club, Falco Football Club, New York Football Club, Harrison Soccer Club, Fall River Football Club, and Todd Shipyards FC. Charles A. Lovett, ‘First Big Professional League Launched’, in Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide, ed. Thomas W. Cahill (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1921), 37. A statistical record of the league along with summaries of each season can be found in Colin Jose, The American Soccer League, 1921–1931: The Golden Years of American Soccer (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998).

2. On Bethlehem Steel see Roger Allaway, Corner Kicks and Corner Offices (Haworth, N.J.: St. Johann Press, 2009) and Dan Morrison, ‘Bethlehem Steel Soccer Club’, http://bethelehemsteelsoccer.org/ (accessed April 7, 2011).

3. ‘A Swing Along Athletic Row’, Bethlehem Globe August 31, 1921. Available online at http://bethlehemsteelsoccer.org/1921.html (accessed April 7, 2011).

4. Tony Mason, Association Football and English Society, 1863–1915 (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1980), 6–7.

5. Dave Wangerin, Distant Corners: American Soccer's History of Missed Opportunities and Lost Causes (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), chapter 2. The first attempt to organize a league came in 1894 with the formation of the American League of Professional Football by baseball owners in the Midwestern United States. It folded after only 17 days: Dave Wangerin, Soccer in a Football World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), 31.

6. Soccer Pictorial Weekly was created by influential publisher Nat Fleisher the founder of the ‘world's foremost boxing magazine’, The Ring.

7. The ASL league records have never been recovered and for some of the major industrial clubs such as Bethlehem Steel and J&P Coats, no corporate records involving soccer club operations have been found. The single best source for the history of American soccer is the Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide published annually between 1903 and 1924.

8. Examples include James Robinson, ‘The History of Soccer in the City of St. Louis’ (PhD thesis, St. Louis University, 1966); Roger Allaway, Rangers, Rovers, and Spindles: Soccer, Immigration, and Textiles in New England and New Jersey (Howarth, NJ: St. Johan Press, 2005), and Gabe Logan, ‘Lace Up the Boots, Full Tilt Ahead: Recreation, Immigration, and Labor on Chicago's Soccer Fields, 1890–1939’ (PhD thesis, University of Northern Illinois, 2007).

9. Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L. Hellerman, Offside. Soccer and American Exceptionalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 102. For a critique of an earlier version of Markovits and Hellerman's thesis, see Nathan D. Abrams, ‘Inhibited but Not ‘Crowded Out’: The Strange Fate of Soccer in the United States’, International Journal of the History of Sport 12,no. 3 (1995), 1–17: .

10. For Chicago see David Trouille, ‘Association Football to Fútbol: Ethnic Succession and the History of Chicago-Area Soccer, 1890–1920’, Soccer & Society 9, no. 4 (2008): 455–76, and for the Boston area Steven Apostolov, ‘Everywhere and Nowhere: The Forgotten Past and Clouded Future of American Professional Soccer From the Perspective of Massachusetts’, Soccer & Society 13, no. 3 (forthcoming 2012), 1–47.

11. ‘Springfield’, Springfield Republican, April 26, 1889; ‘To-Day’, Springfield Republican, November 28, 1889; ‘Springfield’, Springfield Republican, December 26, 1889.

12. ‘New Football League’, Springfield Republican, August 26, 1904, and ‘Will Present a Cup’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 19, 1904.

13. In later years the teams competed for the Walter Scott Cup: see ‘Will Present a Cup’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 19, 1904.

14. ‘Football League Organized’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 10, 1906, and ‘Soccer League Standings’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, October 7, 1907.

15. In 1911 to 1912 the teams also competed for the Wolohan Cup donated by a Holyoke publican. The competition was held in the spring and was governed by ‘Scottish cup tie rules’: ‘Schedule of Soccer League’, Springfield Republican, September 26, 1911.

16. Frances Cornwall Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company: A Case Study in Business History (Northampton, MA: Smith College History Department, 1951), 3–5, 23.

17. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 57.

18. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 68. It is unclear when this originally happened. Hutner discusses the company's granting of the pitch in the context of the creation of the Falco Athletic Association in 1914. As noted, however, the soccer club had existed since 1909.

19. Mason, Association Football and English Society, 21, 90–91.

20. Later the American Writing Paper Company would also field a team but only for the 1919–1920 season.

21. ‘Champion Ludlow Beaten’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 27, 1909.

22. The cup was donated by William Chaloux who owned a billiards room called the Pleasure Hour Club. ‘Big Soccer Game Tomorrow’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 24, 1909. ‘Retain Chaloux Cup’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 29, 1911. The first two editions of the challenge ended as draws but Farr Alpaca won the cup each of the remaining years. After 1913 the teams no longer played on Thanksgiving Day.

23. In 1911 to 1912 the club won a local treble, capturing the league title as well as the Chaloux and Wolohan cups. ‘Farr Alpacas Nail Title’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 28, 1910; ‘Alpacas take the Lead’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, December 2, 1912; ‘One loss in three years’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, February 2, 1913; ‘Alpacas clinch title’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 28, 1913.

24. ‘Big Soccer Game Tomorrow’, Holyoke Daily Tribune, November 24, 1909; ‘Pilgrims in a Tie’, New York Tribune, November 15, 1909. On the tour see Gabe Logan, ‘Pilgrims’ Progress in Chicago: Three English Soccer Tours to the Second City, 1905–09’, Soccer & Society 11, no. 3 (2010), 198–212.

25. Holyoke City Directory 1912 (Holyoke: Transcript Publishing Co., 1912). Photograph available at the Holyoke Public Library History Room and Archive, Holyoke Community College, Holyoke Massachusetts.

26. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, note 59, p. 68.

27. ‘Big Game Arranged for Saturday’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 21, 1913; Holyoke City Directory 1914 (Holyoke: Transcript Publishing Co., 1914).

28. William F. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke: Class and Ethnicity in a Massachusetts Mill Town, 1850–1960 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 42.

29. ‘Alpacas Eliminated’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, November 24, 1913.

30. ‘Bethlehem Teams Wins at Holyoke, Mass. Home Eleven Eliminates Bay State Team from American Cup Competition’, Bethlehem Globe, November 24, 1913. Available at http://bethlehemsteelsoccer.org (accessed April 7, 2011).

31. ‘Big Game for Alpacas’, Springfield Republican, October 25, 1912.

32. Wording as in original: ‘Champion soccer team’, Springfield Republican, December 31, 1911.

33. ‘Holyoke Springfield’, Springfield Republican, April 22, 1915.

34. Some reports put the amount at 200 and others at 300 dollars. ‘Sporting Comment’ and ‘Farr Alpacas turned down’, Springfield Republican, April 29, 1915; ‘Holyoke gets match’, Springfield Republican, May 4, 1915. Burnett worked as a master mechanic at the Lyman Mills: Holyoke City Directory 1916 (Holyoke: Transcript Publishing Co., 1916).

35. Albert Keane, ‘Soccer in New England’; George M. Collins, ‘Soccer in Massachusetts’; James E. Scholefield, ‘The Northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire State Association’, all in Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide, ed. Thomas W. Cahill (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1915), 64, 70, 73.

36. ‘Soccer league schedule’, Springfield Republican, September 21, 1914.

37. The remaining sides were Gilbert & Brown, Athletics, Farr Alpaca, Three Rivers, Ludlow, Chicopee and West Boylston: ‘Soccer League Schedule’, Springfield Republican, September 21, 1914. It seems that not all the clubs completed league play.

38. ‘Joy Reigns in Holyoke’, Springfield Republican, April 18, 1914; ‘Football Standing Announced’, Springfield Republican, December 14, 1914; ‘Junior Soccer League’, Springfield Republican, September 25, 1916; ‘To Boom Soccer’, Springfield Republican, March 6, 1916.

39. ‘Ludlow Man Suspended’, Springfield Republican, March 7, 1916.

40. ‘S. Lowe a “pro”’, Springfield Republican, April 19, 1916; ‘Ludlow Man Suspended’, Springfield Republican, March 7, 1916; ‘Fredette Barred’, Springfield Republican, April 3, 1916.

41. ‘Soccer League to Meet’, Springfield Republican, August 18, 1916.

42. Since the league obviously had not objected to the Farr Alpaca team, it may be evidence that it was not a true ‘shop’ team but rather a collection of workers.

43. ‘No Worry Here’, Springfield Republican, November 17, 1916.

44. The league countered by petulantly declaring that they could not be expelled since they had already voluntarily withdrawn from the state organization. ‘Again Bars Fisks’, Springfield Republican, October 9, 1916; ‘Sporting News’, Springfield Republican, November 3, 1916; ‘Soccer League Not Worried Over Fisks’ and ‘No worry here’, Springfield Republican November 17, 1916; ‘Stand By State’, Springfield Republican, November 25, 1916; ‘Soccer Men Meet’, Springfield Republican, November 27, 1916; ‘Backs the Ruling’, Springfield Republican, December 5, 1916.

45. ‘Plan Shop League’, Springfield Republican, September 16, 1917.

46. ‘Burnett Out for Soccer Presidency’, Springfield Republican, June 19, 1921.

47. For details on the war's effects on soccer in the country see Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide, ed. Thomas W. Cahill (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1918).

48. Fisk was based in Chicopee, Massachusetts; American Writing Paper was from Holyoke and the others came from Springfield.

49. ‘Big Field Day’, Springfield Republican, September 3, 1916.

50. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 67, 68.

51. ‘Western Mass Soccer Schedule’, Springfield Republican, October 22, 1920.

52. ‘Soccer To-day’, Springfield Republican March 19, 1921.

53. Grey and Davis represented Eastern Massachusetts. ‘Falco Takes Title in Soccer Final’, Boston Daily Globe, April 24, 1921.

54. ‘Our Best to Go Against Third Lanark on July 19’, Boston Daily Globe, July 5, 1921.

55. Third Lanark won the game 3–6. George M. Collins, ‘Massachusetts Scores Inside of Two Minutes, But is Beaten by Third Lanark’, Boston Daily Globe, July 17, 1921.

56. ‘Falcos May Enter League Tonight’, Springfield Republican, August 9, 1921; ‘Falcos Vote to Join New League’, Springfield Republican, August 10, 1921.

57. ‘Soccer League Returns $550 to Bethlehem Team’, New York Tribune, August 22, 1921. The 50 dollars was an additional entrance fee.

58. ‘Professional Soccer Facing Greatest Crisis of Its Career’, New York Tribune, September 4, 1921. ‘A swing along Athletic Row’, Bethlehem Globe, August 31, 1921. Available at http://bethlehemsteelsoccer.org/1921.html (accessed April 7, 2011).

59. Charles A. Lovett, ‘First Big Professional League Launched’, in Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide, ed. Thomas W. Cahill (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1921), 37.

60. ‘Professional Soccer Facing Greatest Crisis of Its Career’, New York Tribune, September 4, 1921.

61. ‘Falcos get Coleman, Star Soccer Player’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, October 4, 1921, and ‘Changes in Soccer Teams’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, October 5, 1921. Jose, The American Soccer League, 21–2.

62. ‘Professional Soccer Facing Greatest Crisis of Its Career’, New York Tribune, September 4, 1921. Lack of regular access to adequate facilities contributed to the withdrawal of the Jersey City Celtics in November 1921: see ‘Jersey City Team Surrenders Berth in Soccer League’, New York Tribune, December 11, 1921.

63. ‘Old Baseball Grounds Sold’, Springfield Republican, August 28, 1920. Information on the transaction can be found in Item 21 Deed Book 1873–1929 The Farr Alpaca Company Records (1873–1945) American Textile History Museum, Lowell Massachusetts.

64. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 49, 50, 51.

65. The company records in the American Textile History Museum are not complete and some may have been disbursed after the company folded in 1940 while other materials may have been destroyed in a fire. For details on the collection see ‘Farr Alpaca Finding Aid’, American Textile History Museum.

66. ‘Soccer Results’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 19, 1921.

67. ‘Falcos to Open Season’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, September 21, 1921.

68. Jose, The American Soccer League, 23.

69. The second win came as a result of a forfeit when the clubs agreed to cancel the final two games of the season. Spalding's Official “Soccer” Foot Ball Guide, ed. Thomas W. Cahill (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1922), 57, and Jose, The American Soccer League, 21.

70. ‘Falcos Defeat Abbots’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, May 8, 1922.

71. George M. Collins, ‘Soccer Due For A Big Year’, Boston Daily Globe, July 23 1926.

72. George M. Collins, ‘Soccer Teams Ignore Natives’ and ‘Soccer Due For A Big Year’, Boston Daily Globe, June 29 and July 23, 1926.

73. Constance McLaughlin Green, Holyoke Massachusetts: A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America (Archon Books, 1968; reprint 1939), 367.

74. Steven Tischler, Footballers and Businessmen: The Origins of Professional Soccer in England (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1981), 81.

75. ‘Games Called Off’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, May 19, 1922.

76. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 73.

77. ‘Todd's Defeats Falcos by 4 to 1’, Springfield Republican, October 30, 1921; ‘Falcos Defeated by New Yorkers’, Springfield Republican, November 20, 1921; ‘Falcos Advance By 5–2 Victory’, Springfield Republican, November 27, 1921; ‘Phillies Beat Falcos by 5–3’, Springfield Republican, December 4, 1921; ‘Falcos Get Tie With Coats Team’, Springfield Republican, March 12, 1922; ‘Coats Show More Endurance in Very Last Soccer Game’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, April 17, 1922; ‘Todds Show Real Championship Speed in Holyoke Game’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, April 20, 1922.

78. ‘Falcos and Locals in “No-Decision”’, Springfield Republican, October 28, 1923.

79. The grounds may have limited crowd size since originally the facility had been built in 1904 as a baseball stadium with seating for just 1,250 fans. ‘Work begins today’, Holyoke Daily Transcript, March 30, 1904. The field was sold in 1914 and supposedly the grandstand was removed: see ‘Joy Reigns in Holyoke’, Springfield Republican, April 18, 1914. It is unclear what facilities were in place by 1921, in a photograph of the Falcos from this period what appears to be a grandstand can be seen in the background so it is possible that the structure had either been rebuilt or was never torn down in the first place.

80. Within a few years ASL games would regularly draw 5,000 and sometimes as many as 10,000 fans: ‘American Soccer League’, in The Encyclopedia of American Soccer History, ed. Roger Allaway, Colin Jose, and David Litterer (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2001), 10. Fall River opened a new stadium for the 1922 season that had a capacity of 15,000: Alan Foulds, Boston's Ballparks and Arenas (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2005), 155. For ticket prices see Apostolov, ‘Everywhere and Nowhere’, 6, note 20, p. 41.

81. ‘Treasurer's Report Read at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders June 22, 1921’, Records Book 1914–1928, The Farr Alpaca Company Records (1873–1945), American Textile History Museum.

82. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 157, 158.

83. The population figures are: 1880: 1,085; 1890: 2,175; 1900: 2,945; 1910: 2,957; 1920: 2,917. The percentages are: 1880: 4.95%; 1890: 9.92%; 1900: 8.26%; 1910: 5.12%; 1920: 4.85%: Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 367.

84. Major League Soccer's New England Revolution face the same challenge: see Miguel Moniz, ‘Adaptive Transnational Identity and the Selling of Soccer: The New England Revolution and Lusophone Migrant Populations’, Soccer & Society 8, no. 4 (2007), 467–71.

85. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 35.

86. Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 375.

87. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 49, 137.

88. Ella Merkel DiCarlo, Holyoke-Chicopee: A Retrospective (Holyoke: Transcript-Telegram, 1982), 191, and Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 371.

89. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 59, Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 374.

90. ‘Springfield’, Springfield Republican, March 6, 1890.

91. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 36.

92. ‘Stunts of Candlepin’, Springfield Republican, January 17, 1913.

93. Mason, Association Football, 90–1.

94. Hartford, Working People of Holyoke, 43–4.

95. The club continued to sign players and in 1922 was victimized by ‘an old-country soccer player of considerable experience “gone bad”’. The con-man vanished after receiving ‘a small advance in cash’ from the club: ‘Confidence man hits Falcos’, Springfield Republican, December 17, 1922.

96. George M. Collins, ‘“Hubs” Enter Soccer League’, Boston Daily Globe, October 23, 1925.

97. Hutner, The Farr Alpaca Company, 73, 74.

98. Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 366, 368.

99. ‘Falco Manager Asks For Release After Six Years’, Springfield Republican, February 21, 1926.

100. ‘Falco Soccer Team Drops Out of Triple A Loop’, Springfield Republican, October 8, 1927. Lusitano's website is at http://www.gremiolusitano.com/

101. Markovits and Hellerman, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, 52.

102. This was one reason for the sale of the stadium, see note 75 above. ‘Holyoke: Sports Were Always Important’, Holyoke Daily Transcript-Telegram, December 15, 1979.

103. Quoted in Green, Holyoke Massachusetts, 388–9.