In 1898 America was entering a period of economic depression, which coincided with the Spanish-American War, all four months of it but the one that brought the USA the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico whilst Cuba became a protectorate. America gained, territorially at least. Others including football suffered. It saw the suspension of the American Cup and the following year the National Association Football League. Neither would re-emerge until the new century.
Revival would only be in 1906 and be centred once more on New York and, in particular, New Jersey. Teams would be shamateur, i.e. semi-professional, twelve initially, several as before, Kearny Scots, Paterson True Blues, with some new teams still Scots-influenced, notably Gorden Rangers and the West New York Burns Club plus Harrison's West Hudson A.A. West Hudson was to do the double, defeating Paterson True Blues in the Cup and pipping Kearny Scots in a league of eight, before for a year seeming to disappear. Its absence allowed
Clark ONT, now called Clark Athletic Association in 1908 to take the cup, with Kearny Scots the losing finalist, and Newark F.C. to top the league ahead of Paterson Rangers.
With the re-entry of West Hudson in 1908 -9 the double was almost repeated. It took the cup and was runner-up to Clark A.A. in the league, but one reduced to just six clubs. However, the following year, 1910 at least, in the league, restored to eight all bar one from New Jersey, there was no stopping West Hudson, with a new team Jersey F.C. runners up and Paterson True Blues cup winners, defeating Clarks'. It was, however, to be Clarks' last hurrah. It had already dropped out of the league and the following year it was gone from the Cup too. Perhaps with the retirement of the Clark brothers, and the company's merger with Coats in 1896 there was no longer the same company interest in the club. Certainly the Clarks went on to fame elsewhere, Sir Kenneth Clark of BBC television's Civilisation for one.
It was also in this period that the game in America both on and off the field started to change, having certainly been home-grown from mainly Scots seed and still a little homespun with its textile base. On it 1907 the first recorded is the ex. professional, a player with a number of clubs in Scotland and England and Scottish international,
Tommy Hyslop, aka Bryce Scoullar. He played a game in
Kearny in New Jersey then settled in Philadelphia, joining first the city's Hibernian team and then Tacony. Hector McDonald came from Hearts that same year and also joined the latter, as did Tommy Fleming, Pete Wilson and
Bobby Morrison in 1910, Ed Donaghy in 1911. James McGhee arrived that same year and two years later he was joined by his wife and two sons, notably
Bart McGhee, as that same season Jack Ferguson, ex. of hometown Dundee and Leeds, also crossed the pond.
Bob Millar arrived in 1912 from St. Mirren and so with his family did fifteen year old
Archie Stark.
1912 would also see a number of Tacony players, Fleming, Morrison and Ferguson move across still in Pennsylvania to Bethlehem and the ambitious and expanding Bethlehem Steel team. They would be joined by more Scots professionals. This as Stark was turning out for his local team, none other than Kearny Scots, and although having learned his football in Scotland, on the other side of the Atlantic take the first steps to becoming the American game’s star performer of the post-Great War era. Until Lionel Messi no player had ever scored more goals in a season than he would in 1924; 67 goals in 42 games including 8 hat-tricks. He was a phenomenon but one who was to be offered the possibility of a place of sorts on a World stage, perhaps even footballing immortality, only to to fail to take it. Robert Millar, on the other hand, would experience an almost as successful but more troubled and less obviously lauded playing career but still have his moment on that same stage as a coach.
Meanwhile, in 1910-11 season Jersey A.C. was to take an unchanged league ahead of Paterson Wilberforce, whilst Disston, Tacony by another name, by defeating Kearny Scots became finally the first of a new generation of powerful teams from the Philadelphia area. Then in the years building to the Great War and for the war years the NAFBL remained with the traditional teams – West Hudson for three years, Jersey, Kearny Scots, the Patersons and teams from Harrison, only in 1914 being won by Brooklyn F.C. from New York with in third place and from the same city, Clan Macdonald. The cup was, however, more or less shared between New Jersey and Pennsylvania and in both competitions there was a noticeable increase once more in the number of works teams, company teams. Howard and Bullough, from
Pawtucket, took the cup in 1911. Bethlehem Steel, with its reinforcements first entered and won in 1914, beating local rivals, Disston, the sawmill club, Tacony by another name, in the finals. It would take the cup again from 1917 to 1919, in 1918 defeating Babcock and Wilcox from Bayonne. This was as supremacy in all competitions of the old guard, particularly the New Jersey teams from West Hudson, East Newark, Kearny, Harrison and Paterson, came to an end. In both 1918 and 1919 not only the cup but the double of league and cup was the Steel’s, it having first joined the NAFBL and finishing as runners-up to Paterson F.C. in 1917. And there would be more to come.
Off the field too inthe same period, from 1907 to 1919, there are been major developments. A number of local associations and leagues were being formed, amongst them in Philadelpia, Pennsylvania with its large immigrant population the AFA-affliliated Allied American Football Association (AAFA). A split had also opened up between the shamateur/semi-professional and amateur games. 1911 saw the foundation of the American Amateur Foot Ball Association (AFBA), based in New York. The existing New Jersey-based American Football Association reacted badly, not least when both organisations lobbied a fledgling FIFA to be the sole US representative. FIFA's response was to tell them both to sort it out between themselves and then come back. However, peace talks broke down in 1912 when the AFA effectively withdrew. New York's AFBA's riposte was to approach Pennsylvania's AAFA with the idea to form a new national body for soccer, threatening to squeeze out New Jersey. Discussions followed with the Referees' Association of Philadelphia (RAP) joining in and offering to pay half the founding meeting expenses of the new entity. The president of the RAP was Douglas Stewart. The founding meeting took place on 5th April 1913 with Stewart in the chair and representatives of football organisations from elsewhere on the East Coast as a far away as Utah. What emerged was the United States Football Association, a direct rival to AFA, and it was the body and not the AFA that in 1914 was accepted by FIFA as representing the American game, including the newly inaugurated US Open Cup.
So who was Douglas Stewart. He was a patent lawyer, born in 1872, who had arrived in the USA in 1895 , aged 23, married in New York in 1915 and died in Philadelphia in 1958. On various documents he is said to have been born in England and Scotland, with both his parents certainly Scots-born, he in Rothesay, she in Arbroath. Douglas himself was probably born in Edinburgh, perhaps in Bothwell and although not perhaps much of a player he had shown his love for the sport of youth back home in rising up through the refereeing ranks in his new home. It is a reminder that football anywhere in the World is not just about twenty-two. Without officials and the standardisation imparted through them it is just a brawl. Moreover, clearly in Douglas Stewart's case it was the financial commitment of the organisation he headed up in 1913 that would, it is true indirectly, cause the demise of America's first football governing body but also make possible the one that exists to this day now known as the U.S. Soccer Federation.