Chapter six of the book Soccer Frontiers: The Global Game in the United States, 1863-1913, delves into the origins of soccer in the American South, the challenges the sport faced in terms of popularity and expansion, and the overwhelming influence immigrants held over the sport.
Patrick Sullivan, the author of this chapter, makes clear that the South’s relationship with soccer has often been overlooked in discussions regarding the sport’s history in the U.S.. To this, he credits the region’s distinctiveness to the rest of the nation as well as it’s lack of urban industrial work opportunities that often attracted immigrant groups (especially those from the British Isles) who brought the sport along with them.
New Orleans lays claim to the first established amateur soccer league in the South (1896) but from 1863-1913, Atlanta and Northern Georgia arguably saw the most success with the sport.
The sport is believed to have made it’s way to Northern Georgia via immigrant stone workers (often from Aberdeenshire, Scotland and Penmaenmawr, Wales) who were recruited by quarry operators for their expertise in stonework. In the communities surrounding these quarries, immigrant laborers played soccer in their free time, a sport they often grew up playing. Lithonia, roughly 20 miles east of Atlanta, known as the capital of the southern granite industry, quickly became “the heart of soccer in Northern Georgia.” Different communities began challenging others to friendly matches and soon the sport found footing in metropolitan Atlanta, with the A.G. Spalding & Bros. sporting goods store becoming it’s hub. Similar stories of immigrant-led soccer leagues sprouted up in other southern cities such as Birmingham and the sport could be found at the collegiate level. Yet, organized soccer collapsed in the South when immigrants left to enlist in World War I.
Sullivan, when describing why soccer struggled to find a stable foothold in the American South, even in markets that were receptive, never explicitly addresses the stigma soccer carried (and still carries) as a sport introduced and dominated by immigrant communities. His main arguments revolve around the lack of competition in the region, struggles to form consistent leagues and teams, and lacking transportation infrastructure. Yet, it can be argued, that much of this could have been solved had Americans taken up the sport in stride. Sullivan, when discussing Tom Harland’s move away from the South, states that there was a “…low level of commitment demonstrated by the American teenage players in Atlanta toward soccer…” It is not unlikely that stereotypes of the immigrant groups that played the sport – rowdiness and drunkenness – bleed into the American’s view of soccer as a something not worth their time, especially during the progressive era, and with growing support for prohibition.
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