1923 - 1924 National Challenge Cup: Looking Into the Past

It’s dangerous to talk history sometimes. Those that love the subject are passionate about it and if you screw up, they will let you know about it. So I’m prefacing this short piece by saying I’m not an expert, just a guy who loves history, particularly American soccer history. Also, and this is sincere, if you’re a historian, we welcome your two cents.

The footage isn’t that great, honestly. It’s presented without commentary or sound (sound wouldn’t come to movies for another 3 years) - just barely over 30 seconds of video. It begins with a marching band crossing a field, a large crowd in the background. The next shot is of the Vesper Buick soccer team, standing in line with a line judge (flag in hand). That’s followed with a similar panning shot of Fall River, their kits stitched with the “FR" for their hometown. In the back, you can see a gum-chewing Findlay Kerr (he’s easily identified in his white sweater, traditional wear for keepers in that era ). A crowd shot, showing a large group of people (reports from the time give the attendance as 15,000), mostly men dressed in the era’s style - suits, hats of all sorts, overcoats. Then some game action - which is certainly slower than the modern game, the players more stationary and the ball in the air more than the ground. Then a quick bit of action in the box that (according to wikipedia) shows a hand ball that resulted in the first goal of the match (though the PK isn’t shown). And that’s it.

It’s been talked about on Deadspin, MLS.com, and a host of smaller sites. What it is is the oldest surviving footage of a soccer match in the United States.

Perhaps the oldest extant professional U.S. soccer footage--snippets from the 1924 U.S. Open Cup final, played on March 30, 1924. Fall River Marksmen, champions of the American Soccer League, travelled to St. Louis to face Vesper Buick, champions of the St. Louis Soccer League.

You’ve probably seen it before, but if you haven’t, take 30 seconds and watch it. Then watch it again. That’s soccer royalty right there. That 1924 National Challenge Cup final marked the beginning of an impressive run by Fall River, who would win four over the next seven years (1924, 1927, 1930, 1931). But both these clubs were short lived in their dominance and lifespan.

Vesper Buick is certainly the shorter lived of the two, only playing four seasons in St. Louis. Much has been made of the St. Louis soccer scene and the history goes back into the first decade of last century. In 1924, Vesper Buick won the Saint Louis Soccer League in a shortened season of only 13 matches, going 9-2-2. Their path through the Challenge Cup was smooth sailing until the final, winning the matches with a combined score of 18-3. The teams they beat are a throwback to the era: Scullin Steel, Harmarville Consumers, Goodyear Tire FC, Bricklayers and Masons. Going into the final, Vesper had every reason to feel confident, considering their track record of demolishing opponents. And while we know the history of Fall River now, this was their first entry into the National final.

The Marksmen would only exist for 10 dominant years before being renamed, then moved, and eventually collapsing in the 1930s. But this year’s club was at the height of their excellence. Much like Vesper Buick had cut through their competition in the National Challenge Cup, Fall River’s path through the competition was almost as impressive. Their big challenge was in the quarters and semis. In the quarterfinal, they played Abbot Worsted (also known as Forge Villagers), a club that always contended (though never won) for the National Challenge Cup during the 1920s. Fall River beat them 2-1 and advanced to a semifinal matchup with a club they knew very well, Bethlehem Steel. Fall River and Bethlehem Steel were the dominant teams in the American Soccer League. When Sam Mark took over Fall River, he swiped Bethlehem’s keeper, Findlay Kerr, and several other players in an effort to gain dominance in the league. This matchup of two giants took place on March 9th, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. These clubs played many matches against each other in the ASL regular season, but this matchup was a big one. Reported attendance for this match was 20,000, though that figure has been contested by some historians. Needless to say, beating their arch rivals 2-0 to advance to the Cup Final was a big deal.

The final was a high-scoring affair, with the first half ending 1-1. Fall River had jumped out to a quick lead with a Fred Morley goal, but a handball by defender Alex Kemp led to an equalizing penalty kick by Tom Harris. The second half began the same way the first had begun with another Morley goal. A minute later, Vesper Buick equalized. Fall River would complete the scoring with a goals from Johnny Reid and Harold Brittan. The 1923-1924 National Challenge Cup ended with Fall River taking home the trophy 4-2.

---

The goal of this article was to share that footage, but also to give context to it. Viewed without connection it loses some of its shine. Hopefully this article helps fill some gaps in the story. The fact that a clip from this match actually exists is impressive. Consider that soccer would soon fade from national interest and the clubs and leagues involved would collapse. Of course, the National Challenge Cup would rebrand and continue, but preservation and maintaining the history of the sport was ignored until it was too late. No doubt there was much more footage from this match, but let’s be thankful for the 30 seconds we got! The rest has faded into history. It’s a window into the past and fleshes out the boxscore. It should be cherished, celebrated, and canonized. It’s a look into a past when soccer dominated the sports landscape in this country.

If you are a family member of a player from the past and would like to share your photos or stories, reach out to us at contact@protagonistsoccer.com. We value the history of this great game.

If you are a historian, we’d love to hear from you as well. This clip wouldn’t be public without the work you do. Shoot us an email and give us what you have! We’d love to share the knowledge you have with our readers.

Thanks to The Cup.US who do amazing work and helped shape this article.

- Dan Vaughn

The Ghosts of Fall River

My theory on ghosts is that that they are lingering echoes from time gone by. Not necessarily spirits or spectral beings, but just regular people, like you and I, who are somehow reflecting across time, connected to a place in the world. Maybe that’s less spooky than imagining a haunting spirit in the mood for vengeance, but I’ve always seen it as slightly more scientific. Because the past certainly influences us in the present, from our genetics to our heritage to our national history. They are all aspects that have been shaped and molded by eras that are long gone and by thousands of people long dead. We may pretend that those who came before have no bearing on the here and now, but that doesn’t make them any less significant.

In Tiverton, Rhode Island, there’s a haunted house in the soccer neighborhood. A place where once there was a mighty force that dominated the soccer landscape for a decade. A mighty force that, ghostlike, haunts the dreams of all soccer fans in this country. Mostly in echoes, old fashioned names and grainy black and white images, dancing on the edges of our consciousness like a memory wanting to be remembered, but just out of reach. That place is now an overgrown field, an empty lot, really. Much like the memory of the club that once played there, nearly forgotten by the town that contains it. That place is Mark’s Stadium and the club that played there was the Fall River Marksmen.

The Fall River Marksmen began their storied life in 1922. Fall River United was purchased by Sam Mark and he renamed the club after himself (Mark’s Men = Marksmen). At that time, Fall River and neighboring Tiverton were full of fresh immigrant families, most of whom came to work in the booming textile industry in the area. In 1920, Fall River had over 100 textile factories in operation, making the city the largest textile producer in the United States.

All those mills required a tremendous amount of human labor and European immigrants flooded the market to take those jobs. They brought with them their love of soccer and the American Soccer League and clubs like Fall River United sprouted up to fill that need. Those ghostly clubs from that past era that we’ve heard of but never understood were, for the most part, rooted in these immigrant factory-based communities. The people in these cities supported the sport, filled the stands, and often produced the players. This was truly local soccer.

Prior to Sam Mark purchasing the club, Fall River United was a crap club. Its first year it finished sixth out of eight clubs in the inaugural ASL season. The club leader in goals only had six (Jack Corrigan), and the club tripled that number in the loss category. It was a rough season and the club seemed destined to collapse as many of these start up clubs did that first year (three others disbanded). With the club in a perilous situation, Sam Mark stepped in to save the day. A local businessman who was born in Fall River, he felt that investing in the club could yield some results and he did just that.

Other soccer clubs in that era were drawing 10,000 a match. That might seem like a small number but consider that in 1921 the Boston Red Sox were drawing less than 2,000 fans a game in their new home, Fenway Park. In terms of attendance, soccer was the best attended sport in the United States. Mark knew that if he could turn the club around, he could draw a crowd and, of course, make money.

His first move was renaming the club; shake the dust off and move forward. Next he began building a stadium for his new club. It might be a surprise to some that the stadium site was across the river in Rhode Island, in Tiverton, but Sam had a plan. Massachusetts at the time (some still exist) had strict “blue laws” which restricted  business operations on Sundays. Those laws included soccer matches, so Mark, like any businessman, found a better option that would allow him to run his business on whatever day he chose. To do that, he built his new stadium in Tiverton, RI, close enough to draw crowds from Fall River, but just clear of those pesky blue laws. He named his new 15,000 seat stadium Mark’s Stadium.

Now that the club had been rebranded and moved into a new home, it was time to restructure the play on the field. The first move was to bring on multiple players from the Scottish Leagues (this would cause problems later on). The big signing, however, came from another ASL club: Bethlehem Steel. Mark signed Harold Brittan, a former Chelsea player who had scored 24 goals for Bethlehem the year before. His offense was sure to bring change to the 18 loss club.

The 1923 season showed instant improvement for Fall River. Brittan delivered on his promise, scoring 19 goals and pushing the club to third in the league. The next season Mark invested in the roster again and the club improved- winning the double -both the ASL and the National Challenge Cup (what’s now called the U.S. Open Cup). The semifinal match of the Challenge Cup, where Fall River would face league rivals Bethlehem Steel, drew an estimated 20,000. That 1924 season would be the beginning of a decade of dominance for the Fall River Marksmen. The club won six league titles and four National Challenge Cup competitions. But all ghost stories contain tragedy and the story of Fall River is no exception.

While the American Soccer League had done well for most of the 1920s, the next decade would bring trouble for the league. The Great Depression greatly reduced the amount of disposable income in the country and most leagues struggled. To magnify the financial problems, the ASL had placed most of its clubs in manufacturing centers. Much of that manufacturing slowed or died during the economic downturn, creating mass unemployment. Even worse, there was a wave of anti-immigrant hysteria in the country and soccer was seen as a foreign sport. These outside pressures sparked infighting between the league clubs. The final nail was FIFA pressuring the USFA (now USSF) to sanction the ASL, due to its raiding of European leagues and ignoring existing club contracts. In 1933, the greatest American soccer league- one that had dominated the national soccer culture, crushed visiting foreign clubs, gobbled up players from around the world, and won the battle for sports fans in the country -collapsed.

Fall River Marksmen disbanded and the players were absorbed into the few surviving clubs that remained. Sam Mark moved to California to pursue other business opportunities. Mark’s Stadium was used by other clubs over the next couple of decades, before being turned into a drive-in theater. That theater was eventually torn down in the 1970s. Now there’s nothing but an empty field, overgrown with weeds and scrub trees; a ghostly symbol of what once was.

For the most part, the ghosts of Fall River barely touch the awareness of modern American soccer fans. Most fans began their awareness in the 1990s with the emergence of MLS. Some older groups may remember the 1970s and the NASL, Pele and the Cosmos, but almost no one goes back to the old American Soccer League. The Marksmen were the greatest of a generation, maybe the greatest American soccer team of all-time in their brief heyday. Their memory has become the thing of legends and myths, almost unbelievable. But their ghosts linger, begging to be remembered.

- Dan Vaughn

Many thanks to TheCup.US for their amazing work, telling the story of soccer in this country. Their articles on Fall River Marksmen were used as sources in the writing of this article. I highly recommend their site if you want to go down the rabbit hole of US soccer history.