EPISODE 327: Scottish Soccer Summer Dalliances - With Mark Poole

The 1960s were a tumultuous, but crucial period in the development of professional soccer in the United States and Canada - with teams from Scotland, of all places, playing a particularly interesting role.

The dividing line for the modern North American pro game, of course, was the breakthrough, near-live (two-hour-delayed) NBC-TV network telecast of the 1966 World Cup final between eventual champion England and West Germany - the first-ever national standalone broadcast of the sport.

Prior to that watershed, it was sports entrepreneur Bill Cox's International Soccer League that imported full major European & South American teams to play in a senior-level competition in largely East Coast urban centers and first-generation immigrant communities. Among the ISL's regulars were three Scottish sides - including Kilmarnock FC, which played four seasons and made the 1960 final.

Immediately after the World Cup, no fewer than three groups of eager sports owners sought to launch a full-fledged domestic North American league; by 1967, two competing circuits bowed - including a hastily-assembled United Soccer Association, featuring full-team ISL-like imports - but under noms de plume of North American cities.  Front and center were Scottish stalwarts Aberdeen FC - masquerading as the District of Columbia's "Washington Whips."

UK football writer Mark Poole ("99 Iconic Moments in Scottish Football: From the Famous to the Obscure, Scotland’s Glorious, Unusual and Cult Games, Players and Events") tells us the stories behind these two curious Scottish contributions to US pro soccer history.

99 Iconic Moments in Scottish Football: From the Famous to the Obscure, Scotland’s Glorious, Unusual and Cult Games, Players and Events - buy book here

EPISODE 215: "Toffee Soccer" - With David France & Rob Sawyer

We admit that when our friends at Liverpool's deCoubertin Books reached out recently with an advance look at their upcoming title devoted to the history of one of England's most venerable top-flight soccer clubs, we weren't immediately sold on the premise, nor its applicability to our (admittedly) odd brand of sports curiosity.

But after just a few minutes with the meticulously detailed "Toffee Soccer: Everton and North America," we became not only intrigued by the rich, storied saga of Everton F.C.'s 143-year journey into what is now known as the English Premier League - but downright fascinated with its surprising contributions to the development of the game in North America.

Toffee co-authors David France and Rob Sawyer join the podcast this week to shine light on the little-known, but undeniable connection between the "Blues" and the rise of the modern-day pro game in the US & Canada.

From the club's unexpected 1961 runner-up finish in the influential International Soccer League, to its subsequent supply of dozens of top players to the foundational North American Soccer League of the 70s/80s, to its recent embrace of world-class American players like Landon Donovan and Tim Howard - the "People's Club" has been an unwittingly integral part of soccer's Stateside history - far beyond Goodison Park.

Toffee Soccer: Everton and North America - buy book here

EPISODE 127: A British View of US Pro Soccer History – With Tom Scholes

UK sportswriter Tom Scholes (Stateside Soccer: The Definitive History of Soccer in the United States) joins host Tim Hanlon to discuss the surprisingly long, colorfully vibrant and regularly misunderstood history of the world’s most popular sport in America.

While even the most erudite of the game’s international scholars mistakenly (though understandably) define the US pro game’s epicenter as the chaotic, post-1966 World Cup launch of the North American Soccer League – the roots of organized soccer actually date as far back as the American Civil War, around the time when the first rules around “American football” were also coming into focus.

In fact, US soccer’s actual first “golden age” can be traced to the Roaring 1920s when immigrant-rich corporate teams in the first American Soccer League rivaled the nascent National Football League in popularity, and US national teams regularly qualified for the first-ever FIFA World Cups in 1930 (finishing third) and 1934.

While a heavily ethnic successor ASL and regional semi-pro circuits kept American soccer’s flickering flame alive (not to mention an international headline-grabbing 1950 World Cup upset of then-world power England), the organized game in the United States continued to grow – albeit regionally niche and nationally inchoate – especially at the pro level.

Yet, the Bill Cox-created International Soccer League of the early 1960s proved that American fan interest in top-flight professional soccer played by the world’s premier clubs was real – setting the kindling for the NASL’s eventual wildfire during the following decade, yet eventual flameout in 1984.

Since then, Scholes suggests, the US has finally entered its third golden age of soccer – as the no-longer “new” Major League Soccer closes in on its 24th consecutive season of growth (recently adding history-rich St. Louis as its 28th North American market) – while the women’s national team extends its unprecedented dominance on the international stage.

Still, soccer’s future success in America is by no means guaranteed – and the frequent travails of America’s long history with the game provide ample lessons of what might ultimately lie ahead.

Enjoy a FREE MONTH of The Great Courses Plus streaming video service – including the new series “Fundamentals of Photography” – created in conjunction with National Geographic!

Stateside Soccer: The Definitive History of Soccer in the United States - buy here

EPISODE #47: US Pro Soccer’s 1960s-Era Rebirth with Author Dennis Seese

The history of professional soccer in the United States is richer and far more complex than today’s generation of Major League Soccer fans might realize.  Multiple ethnically-infused pro leagues existed as far back as the early 1900s – but when the American Soccer Association collapsed in Depression-Era 1933, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s when the next serious attempt to bring full-fledged, top-flight Division One professional soccer to US shores was pursued in earnest.

In 1966, suddenly and incredibly, no fewer than three separate groups of well-heeled American sports businessmen coalesced around the same idea, each attempting to draft off of attention-generating events like entrepreneur Bill Cox’s International Soccer League tournaments and NBC’s surprisingly high-rated, near-live national TV broadcast of the World Cup Final from England.

According to research librarian (and unwitting soccer historian) Dennis Seese (The Rebirth of Professional Soccer in America: The Strange Days of the United Soccer Association), it was a tumultuous revival that ultimately yielded two hastily-assembled competing leagues the following year – the FIFA-sanctioned United Soccer Association (featuring whole-cloth international clubs pseudonymously representing 12 American cities), and the “outlaw” National Professional Soccer League (boasting a national CBS television contract and a one-month-earlier start for its ten teams) –  that rushed to beat each other to the American public with their pro versions of the “world’s game.”

What resulted was near-disaster: sparse crowds, dubious refereeing, anemic ratings, and a shotgun post-season merger to form a successor North American Soccer League in 1968 – which, despite its inherited broadcast TV coverage and official international governing body approval, sputtered mightily itself.  By the end of the merged NASL’s first season, only five teams remained – and the future of American professional soccer was very much in doubt. 

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The Rebirth of Professional Soccer in America: The Strange Days of the United Soccer Association - buy book here