EP 12: A Book Talk with Brian D. Bunk, author of ”From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States” (October 2021)

Tom McCabe hosts a Book Talk with Brian D. Bunk about his new book, From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States (University of Illinois Press).

In From Football to Soccer, Bunk, a senior lecturer in the history department at the University of Massachusetts, examines a variety of kicking games played by native peoples and colonists alike across North America before soccer’s emergence in the late 1800s. He then discusses the development of league play in the United States, including the first professional leagues, while also recounting the beginnings of the women’s game, the impact of the First World War on soccer’s development, and the return of professionalism in the form of the American Soccer League.

Podcast produced by Brian Quarstad.

Music created by LiteSaturation and found at Pixabay.

View the video of the session at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTo0xOQqBS0&list=PLF9oL3yRaMyyYqsS1Qqj6XxUV8RU6p4tC&index=12&t=32s&pp=iAQB

For more US soccer history, visit the SASH website at https://www.ussoccerhistory.org/