Soccer: An American History - Part Two: Struggles, Expansion and International Influence
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today's It Was What It Was, Rob Draper and Jonathan Wilson continue to explore the fascinating story of soccer in the United States.
Highlighting the pivotal role of immigrant communities in the sport's development, the episode also examines key figures like Bela Gutmann and the significant tours by foreign teams that attracted huge crowds.
Join us for the conclusion of this three-part series on Tuesday.
00:00 Introduction to Bela Gutmann's New York Era
00:51 The Pre-History of American Soccer
01:36 Challenges in Establishing Soccer in the U.S.
02:26 The First Professional Soccer League
04:24 Financial Struggles and League Dynamics
07:16 Formation and Early Years of the American Soccer League
20:53 Innovations and Comparisons with Other Sports
24:19 College Football's Dominance and Soccer's Struggles
25:39 The Role of Universities in American Sports
26:14 Challenges in Early American Soccer
26:53 The Rise of the New York Giants
27:44 Fall River Marksmen's Dominance
28:25 Economic Struggles and Soccer's Impact
29:29 The League's Early Successes and Challenges
30:14 Expansion and New Teams
31:13 Player Transfers and Immigration Issues
33:19 The American Menace and Scottish Football
34:49 International Influence and Jewish Tours
41:07 The Impact of Jewish Players and Fans
44:23 The Maccabees and Tactical Evolution
47:49 The League's Growing Popularity and Issues
50:32 Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was young, elegant and witty. |
| 0:09.5 | My circle of acquaintances raved about me. |
| 0:12.4 | My mediocre jokes prompted uproarious laughter. |
| 0:15.8 | The ladies were delighted by my charm, |
| 0:18.0 | and the men admired my brilliant chest moves in business. |
| 0:22.1 | I was admired and pampered like a star by everyone. Well, welcome back to it was what it was. And that was |
| 0:29.4 | Bella Gutman talking about his time in New York. You might have thought it was someone talking |
| 0:35.9 | about Jonathan Wilson when he's in America talking about soccer, but it wasn't it. It was a great Hungarian coach who ended up in New York and was fated by polite society, which is interested in itself because obviously there is a little bit of mania and interest in soccer. And welcome back to our series on the growth of American soccer, how it |
| 0:56.6 | establishes itself in the country, or rather how it doesn't establish yourself as a major sport until |
| 1:01.5 | much, much later, and why that is. We're going into the prehistory of American soccer. |
| 1:05.8 | So in the first part of this series, which I'd urge you to go back and listen to, if you haven't, |
| 1:09.9 | we see the emerged the Challenge Cup, which I'd urge you to go back and listen to. If you haven't, we see the |
| 1:11.0 | emerge of the Challenge Cup, which is the big cup competition. And to the end of the First World |
| 1:16.2 | War, it's a thriving soccer scene, but it's not quite getting the crowds. But Jonathan, |
| 1:20.6 | we're now going to see the establishment of a professional league in the United States of America |
| 1:25.7 | and people like Bella Gutman are going to come over and be sort of impressed by soccer. |
| 1:31.0 | So what's going on after the First World War with soccer in the United States of America? |
| 1:36.4 | Yeah, so I think in that first part, we saw a lot of the problems that soccer had had in the US. |
| 1:41.9 | So it's very difficult to establish a national association or |
| 1:46.2 | league, partly because of the size of a country, partly because of the weather, because baseball is |
| 1:50.9 | the dominant summer sport already established, you're playing in winter, and the weather in |
| 1:55.6 | the north-east of US, which is where a lot of a soccer is based, is very in hospitable. If you get heavy snow, you obviously can't play. |
... |
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