EP 20: Great Lakes Soccer from the 1880s to the 1930s and the Emergence of the Intercity League (September 2022)

Host Tom McCabe is joined by Craig Tower for a discussion of soccer in the Great Lakes region, 1880s-1930.

While the Great Lakes is now seen as a cradle of traditionally “American” sports — gridiron football, baseball, and basketball — the history of intercity soccer and efforts to form a Midwest intercity league go back to the 19th century. The roots of the sport predate the modern rules of association football, and the game was played throughout the region, well beyond St. Louis and Chicago which have long been recognized for their soccer communities. From urban centers like Cincinnati to relatively obscure locales like East Liverpool, Ohio and Muncie, Indiana, soccer found a home in the Great Lakes States of the Midwest.

After years of efforts to launch competitive intercity play, in 1929, a six-team USFA-sanctioned professional league was formed in three U.S. cities with long-standing multi-tiered amateur and semi-pro leagues and soccer histories, each dating back to at least 1890. The cities in the league were the economic powerhouses of Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland – the 2nd, 4th, and 6th largest cities in the nation by population. The teams were competitive, challenging Eastern professional sides for the US Open Cup; stealing stars from the ASL, Europe, Canada, and each other; going toe-to-toe with teams from Europe and Latin America; and placing players on the 1930 US National team which reached the semifinals of the World Cup. The league and the teams innovated, playing a mixed schedule with both a regular season and a tournament structure, experimenting with indoor games and under lights, and expanded existing soccer networks in the Midwest, Middle Europe, Canada, and Latin America.

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=zjBhCvlSsvs&list=PLF9oL3yRaMyyYqsS1Qqj6XxUV8RU6p4tC&index=21&pp=iAQB

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