Early Days of Soccer
By ROBERT PRUTER
Soccer is the American name for what the rest of the world calls football. The word "soccer" began as a slang derivative of the name that the sport was originally called, association football, the kicking style game that was played under the rules of the Football Association, formed in England in 1863. Immigrants introduced soccer into the United States from the British Isles in the last two decades of the 19th century. The immigrants would form clubs to compete among each other. A number of club teams in New Jersey formed the American Football Association in 1884.
By the early 1890s English, Scottish, and Irish residents in Chicago had formed association football clubs and were regularly competing against each other. But the impetus for soccer's introduction into Illinois high schools would not come from these immigrant clubs, but from the universities and colleges. The institutions of higher learning had always served to act as "big brother" mentors for new developments in high schools, and in the development of soccer their role was similar. Only when the high schools saw the universities and colleges adopt the sport of soccer would they be encouraged to adopt the sport.
The breakthrough year for soccer in the universities was 1905. The entrance of soccer in the schools was a direct result of the concern about the mounting number of deaths and injuries produced by football, the most dangerous and violent college sport of the day. There was a rising clamor among the public to either reform football or abolish it altogether. Because of this growing disfavor of football, many colleges around this time were dropping the sport, and soccer appeared to be a more palatable diversion. The Inter Ocean in March of 1905 reported on the increased interest in soccer:
"Many things have come about to increase the public interest in the association or kicking game of football, and indications in various parts of the country indicate that this will be the most successful year in the history of the sport in the United States. About thirty clubs play the 'socker' game in Philadelphia. New York is taking it up, and St. Louis had two leagues of four clubs each playing in autumn and spring. The most salient point, however, is that some of the colleges have become interested in the sport, which will undoubtedly do more to bring it to the attention of the American public than any other method that could be devised."
The article continued by discussing inaugural activities in the sport by such colleges as Harvard, Haverford, Pennsylvania, and Columbia. That spring those schools along with Cornell formed the Inter-University Association Football League, and the following spring league competition was begun.
The injuries and deaths produced by football in the high schools likewise encouraged some educators to turn to soccer. When New York City's Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) adopted a full athletic schedule in the fall of 1906 it included soccer, but not football. The city's high schools continued to play football but not under the jurisdiction (and imprimatur) of the PSAL. A slew of physical educators as well as champions of soccer argued that soccer was not only less dangerous than football it was a more democratic sport that allowed many more students to enjoy the benefits of as open-air physical exercise in a non-brutal sport. This was the argument of one of the leading physical educators of the day, Henry S. Curtis, who wrote his article, "A Plea for Association Football," in the influential American Physical Education Review, in March 1906. Ernest Cecil Cochrane, writing in 1906 for one of the annual advocacy articles on soccer for the Spalding Guide, did not fail to note the brutality of football in discussing how secondary schools were helping to advance the game. Said he, "Probably the greatest factor in the development of the game is its adoption by the big private and public schools. Many of the preparatory institutions and smaller colleges are supporting elevens owing to the absence of rough or brutal plays, and it is these that the future development of the game must be, in large measure, looked for..."
In Illinois, the high schools were swept by the same winds that were sweeping the colleges. As in the colleges it was the violence of football that directly precipitated the sport's first inroads. Chicago's Englewood High had experienced a serious football accident in the fall of 1905, and that incident motivated a teacher in the English department, Archibald Patterson, to establish a soccer team at Englewood as a safer alternative to football. The teacher looking back on those years, said in 1935, "The infant sport made its advent under a cloud. No student knew the game, few had ever heard of it, and the cause of its introduction stamped it as 'sissy.'"
Englewood was unable to schedule other high schools, its first game being with an amateur club, the Wanderers. The Chicago Tribune noted the significance of the game, reporting, "In the first soccer football match ever played by a local high school team the Englewood team yesterday afternoon defeated a scratch eleven of the Wanderers at Parkside, 4 goals to 3." The Wanderers were members of an Anglo-American cricket club, reflecting the early immigrant base of the sport. Englewood's second opponent that year was with the University of Chicago. This kind of scheduling continued for the next three seasons, with teams from McCormick Theological Seminary and Elmhurst College added to the high school's schedule.
In the fall of 1908 Oak Park under athletic director Lewis Omer adopted the sport. Like Englewood, the school had experienced a fatal football accident, in the fall of 1905. Oak Park played a schedule of colleges and club teams and did not meet Englewood until the following spring, when the two schools played two tied games. The first game was perceptively recognized by the Tribune as ground breaking, as it reported, "high school soccer made its initial bow in Chicago yesterday when the Englewood and Oak Park teams played a 1 to 1 tie game at the Hyde Park A. C. grounds, Fifty-second street and Cottage Grove avenue."
Englewood 1908 soccer team. Chicago Tribune, 6 December 1908
An English teacher at Englewood, W. R. Bowlin, and Omer of Oak Park tried to prevail upon the Cook County High School League to adopt the sport as early as December of 1908, according to a report in the Tribune, which referred to soccer as "the debrutalized game." President Reed of the Board of Control in the story commented on soccer's virtues, "There is less chance of injuries to the boys than in the college game [meaning football], and those who do not play the latter game could take part in this, which would allow more boys to get into athletics than at present." Despite the favorable comments of league authorities, the game was not adopted until the spring of 1910.
Englewood, 1910, with Coach Archibald Paterson (center top)
The Peel Shield was inaugurated for the spring soccer series in 1912 by Peter J. Peel, local soccer enthusiast and president of the local United States Football Association. Peel had devised the Peel Cup for the winner of the Chicago amateur soccer league and devised the Shield to give to the winner of the Cook County League and thus promote soccer among high school youth. The first four schools to compete for the Shield were Englewood, Oak Park, Lane Tech, and LaGrange, and Englewood emerged as the winner. The first Cook County League fall championship was won in December 1912 by Lane Tech.
Lane Tech 1912 Cook County League championship team. Chicago Tribune, 8 December 1912
Lane Tech, 1913 Chicago High School League Champions
The Cook County League broke up in spring of 1913 to form two new leagues the following fall, the Chicago Public League and the Suburban League. That fall, the Chicago league champion was Lane Tech, the first Suburban League champion was New Trier. However, the schools did not meet for the Peel Shield. In years thereafter, however, the Peel Shield was awarded to the "Cook County champion," generally determined by a playoff game between the Suburban League and Chicago Public League titleholders. In the spring of 1914, however, it was decided that the two top two finishers in both leagues from the previous fall competition would compete for the Shield. But two of the schools, including champion Lane Tech were not fielding teams in the spring. Thus, the next Shield competition was moved to the fall of 1914, and again competition was to be among the top two finishers of each league. Thus, the fall of 1914 Englewood beat Lake View for the Peel Shield. Introduced in 1914 were individual medals for the Peel Shield winner, which were awarded by a Peel Shield representative, Albert A. Loeb. After the 1914 season the Shield competition reverted to a simple championship game between the two league titleholders.
Competition for the Shield ended with the fall 1919 championship game between Englewood and Oak Park. The game was marked by rough play and ended in a 2 to 2 tie after regular-period play. Although the referee ordered an extra period Coach Mitchell of Oak Park took his team off the field. Peter J. Peel and Albert A. Loeb ordered a rematch but it was never played. The following year when Englewood and Oak Park again won their respective years, Patterson asked for a match for the Peel Shield but Oak Park declined, ending the series. The Peel Shield series was obviously dominated between Englewood and Oak Park, but other schools playing soccer at this time were University, New Trier, and Evanston of the Suburban League, and Lane Tech, Hyde Park, Lake View, Tilden Tech, Parker, Schurz, Calumet, Crane, and Phillips of the Chicago Public League.
By the end of the 1920s interest in soccer had waned among most area high schools. Englewood, the pioneer in the sport, dropped it in 1925, although the Public League kept up a conference championship series. The Suburban League, however, dropped its series in 1926. Beginning in the fall of 1930, the few suburban schools supporting the sport and the city schools would conduct a playoff for the Cook County championship. Usually, Oak Park or Morton would meet the Public League champion for the title of Cook County champion. During the 1940s and 1950s interest in soccer continued to wane, and the Public League held its last series in the fall of 1956.
Harrison, 1930 Cook County High School Champions
Interest in soccer, however, revived in the 1960s, and Chicago was again becoming a center for immigrants, particularly from Latin America and Eastern Europe. The demand for soccer from the kids in the Chicago schools practically forced the cash-strapped Public League to reintroduce the sport in the fall of 1970. Meanwhile, soccer was growing by leaps and bounds all over the state. The sport had always been particularly strong in the St. Louis area, where on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River Granite City and Collinsville sponsored outstanding programs for decades. Interest in soccer had grown so much that the IHSA introduced a boy's state championship tournament in the fall of 1972. A girl's state tournament was introduced in the spring of 1988.
Footnotes availble upon request. Published with permission. All rights are reserved by the author.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Illinois High School Association.