But probably not the history you'd expect.
I'm an avowed history buff; if the television in my house isn't on Wow Wow Wubbzy, it's invariably on the History Channel, Discovery, or some other network that trades in retrospective programming. I eat the stuff up.
Soccer history, and particularly American soccer history, is always of keen interest. We've heard about 1950, we've seen the movie. We've heard about the NASL glory days, and
Once in a Lifetime
certainly captures some of the essence for those of us who weren't around.
But there's another chapter of American soccer history that too often gets overlooked, a chapter that had every chance of ending with soccer as the biggest sport in America: the real heyday of American soccer, the 1920's.
And so I give you Brian Phillips and his Slate piece The Secret History of American Soccer.
Whatifs are fun, if ultimately pointless, and we wouldn't be human if we didn't imagine a world where soccer became the dominant sport in America ninety-odd years ago. Would the USA have won World Cups? Would we have the richest, most visible league in the world?
Maybe. But remember that the sport is what it is because history played out the way it did. If America had truly fallen in love with soccer in the 1920's, I'm not sure we'd be much better off. In fact, I'm almost certain I wouldn't be writing this blog, for example. That would be no good. No good at all.
Anyway, check out Brian's piece, learn a little something, and imagine what it might be like now if it hadn't gone all wrong then.
Maybe it's because I'm from Philadelphia, but I always get a bitter taste in my mouth whenever I hear or read the words "New Jersey." Or maybe it's because kit manufacturers have a history of messing about in order to make jerseys look just different enough that they can get fans to buy them. Either way, there's some Pavlovian stuff going on in my noggin.
