SASH Sessions

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 assoc...

New York Cosmos historian and SASH director Dr. David Kilpatrick hosts a roundtable discussion with New York Cosmos alumni Randy Horton, Josef Jelinek, Werner Roth, and John O’Reilly on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the team’s first North American Soccer league (NASL) championship.  Podcast produced by Brian Quarstad. Music created by  LiteSaturation  and found at  Pixabay . View the vid...

Host Tom McCabe is joined by Tom Langton for a discussion on Anglo-American football history before 1850. Tom is the son of the accomplished British sports journalist and sports art and history aficionado Harry Langton (1929–2000) who established the world famous FIFA-Langton Collection, now owned by the National Football Museum Trust. Tom took over his family archives and company in 2013 as Langt...

Host Tom McCabe is joined The Athletic's Pablo Mauer and Matt Pentz to discuss their recent article, “The disappearance of Wee Willie McLean: Solving America’s oldest soccer mystery.” William “Wee Willie” McLean was born in Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century. A speedy winger, Wee Willie’s dominant play in Chicago and St. Louis led to multiple league and U.S. Open Cup titles during the 1...

Host TOm McCabe is joined by author Michael Lewis, who discusses his new book,  Alive and Kicking: The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers Lewis covered the team from 1974-1980 for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, documenting all the ups and downs of Rochester’s only major league sports franchise. Using his own reporting, recent interviews with the men who lived the dream with...

Tom McCabe hosts presentations in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the first American Soccer League season. The ASL100 presenters are: Dan Creel on the Fall River Rovers and Fall River United situation in the inaugural 1921-22 season Gabe Logan on the “overlooked” 1924-25 National Challenge Cup Championship James Brown presents a spotlight on Ernő Schwarcz Podcast produced by Brian Quarstad...

The idea behind the “Research Roundtable” is to provide a forum for SASH members to discuss their current research projects and connect with other researchers who may be able to share useful advice and information. The presenters for the inaugural Research Roundtable, hosted by Tom McCabe, are: Steven Torres, president of the Association of North, Central America & The Caribbean Football Inves...

Host Tom McCabe is joined by Chris Bolsmann and George Kioussis, editors of Soccer Frontiers: The Global Game in the United States, 1863–1913 (2021, University of Tennessee Press). Soccer Frontiers examines the early history of soccer in the United States, which has received relatively little scholarly attention. Soccer Frontiers helps to fill this gap and correct the widespread notion that soccer...

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 Ameri...

Tom McCabe hosts a Book Talk with author, football historian, and philanthropist David Harry France, OBE, who discusses his book Toffee Soccer: Everton in North America. Throughout the past two decades, Dr. France has been the driving force behind numerous initiatives related to Everton Football Club including Gwladys Street’s Hall of Fame, the Everton Former Players’ Foundation, the EFC Heritage...

Tom McCabe hosts a talk with Djorn Buchholz, Executive Director of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Buchholz discusses his tenure at the Hall from its 2018 opening in Frisco, TX, developing a new process for the induction of Hall of Famers, managing the organization during a global pandemic, and plans for the future. Podcast produced by Brian Quarstad. Music created by  LiteSaturation  and found...

“Peters, Clovers, and Blue Chippers: the Emerald Influence on American Soccer" examines Ireland’s influence on soccer in the United States. Hosted by Tom McCabe, the session includes three presentations: “Peter Peel: Long Journey Home” by Michael Kielty (pronunciation: Keel – Tee), the Head of Department for Arts, Languages and Study Abroad in Dublin Business School in Ireland. Michael works with...

Tom McCabe is the host and the subject is Oliver and Fred Watson, the earliest known African American soccer players in the US. Ed Farnsworth and Brian Bunk, co-authors of a recent paper on the Watsons at the SASH website , will discuss the Rhode Island-born brothers, who played on Pawtucket-area teams beginning in 1894. Between them the Watsons’ achieved several milestones, including the first Af...

Kevin Tallec Marston is the host and the subject is the history of soccer in the South Central and Midwestern regions of the United States. The presenters and their presentations are: Patrick H. Salkeld, “‘The Daddy and Guardian Angel of Soccer Football Here’: Thomas Corden Powell and Soccer in Topeka, Kansas, 1910-1918” Jeff Organ, “Texas Soccer History in Three Stories” Rachel Allison, “Patterns...

The subject is researching and presenting club soccer history and features three members of the Society, advisory board member Dr. David Kilpatrick of Mercy College, Bob Gansler, and Derek Goncalves. Tom McCabe is the host. Kilpatrick, the official club historian of the New York Cosmos, will kick off the session speaking about the club historian and his decade-long work with the Cosmos. Gansler, J...

David Kilpatrick welcomes Gabe Logan, professor of history at Northern Michigan University, who discusses Windy City soccer history with images from his book, The Early Years of Chicago Soccer, 1887-1939 (Lexington Books, 2019). For information about the book, please visit  https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498599030/The-Early-Years-of-Chicago-Soccer-1887%E2%80%931939 Podcast produced by Brian Quarstad....

In the summer of 2020, SASH members discovered the earliest known footage of the US Men's National Team, taken during the team's 1916 tour of Sweden and Denmark, in the Swedish Film Institute archive. Tom McCabe hosts a discussion with University of Massachusetts professor and SASH member Brian Bunk about how the footage was discovered, the contents and context of the footage, and ongoing efforts...

Tom McCabe hosts a Book Talk with Beau Dure, author of 2012: The Year that Saved Women’s Soccer (2020). Dure discusses the state of women’s soccer in what he calls the “dark ages” of the early 2000s, and how the successful 2012 NWSL season anchored professional women’s soccer in the American soccersphere. Dure has covered women’s soccer throughout his nearly 30-year journalism career, where he has...

A discussion on the worldwide influence of the "Scotch Professors" and will feature presenters from the Scotch Professors Network of Scotland and the United States. Hosted by Tom McCabe, the presenters and their presentations are: Graeme Brown, The Story of the Lost Hampden Park: The World’s Most Important Football Ground Ged O’Brien, The Scotch Professor: A Half-Hidden History Jim Mackintosh, Is...

The Society for American Soccer History organized a virtual symposium to replace the symposium originally scheduled for the weekend of April 18-19 at Rutgers University-Newark. The Rutgers-Newark symposium was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The presenters and their presentations are: Kurt Rausch – Samuel Bustard and Soccer Through The Turbulent Teens Patrick Sullivan – A Fine Silver Cup: N...