Rich Seams of Soccer History in Illinois Coal Fields

From House Historian, Chuck Carlson

Major League Soccer (MLS) announced in December 2023 that they would discontinue first team participation in the USA’s longest running men’s national competition, the U.S. Open Cup.

This announcement caused significant discussion during soccer’s off-season, with a surprising number of MLS pundits agreeing with MLS Commissioner Don Garber’s comments that the Cup is “a very poor reflection of what it is we’re trying to do with soccer at the highest level.” (ESPN.com December 15, 2023)

So, what is a Club Historian to do when confronted with a pretty blatant frontal attack on the most historic and democratic men’s soccer competition we have in the US? Research, of course!

Hap Meyer Collection, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville

Under my twitter handle of @ChiHouseHistory, I have begun a “post-a-week for 52 weeks” project on soccer and history in Illinois with an emphasis on Coal Mining communities. While I was inspired by the importance of the Open Cup, this project is intended to not only highlight some relatively obscure soccer history, I am also hoping to show that through the study of soccer in Illinois communities, we can see what is best, and, unfortunately, sometimes worst, of the USA.

JOHNSTON CITY

Johnston City, Illinois is a town of ~3,400 in Williamson County, and a 5-hour car ride straight down I-57 South from Chicago, is the first “soccer history rich” community I am highlighting. Because of a vigorous coal mining business environment after the turn of the century, Johnston City went from a population of 787 in 1900 to over 7,000 people by 1920.

Many of those 6,200+ new residents were employed by the coal mines, and though coal mining is extremely dangerous, the work was steady, and newly arrived immigrants were attracted to Williamson County. Miners from County Durham in northeast England found Southern Illinois familiar. Along with work in the mines, these English migrants continued playing the game that was most popular in their home country, Association Football.

By 1911, Johnston City was competitive enough to attract the attention of one of Chicago’s best teams at the time: Hyde Park Blues.

The Blues had won the Peel Cup championship that year and invited Johnston City up to their home ground at 52nd and Cottage Grove for a “State Championship” match. Unfortunately for Johnston City, the big city team walked away 5-1 winners.

Despite that 1911 defeat, the Johnston City sports community did not give up on soccer and in 1921, they entered the 1922 Open Cup (or, as it was called then, the National Challenge Cup.) If nothing else, the team knew how to recruit, and included Fred Blockley, a former Huddersfield Town FC player in England, who had had national success in the USA with Chicago’s Pullman FC.

Johnston City opened their Cup campaign with a 1-0 (AET) win over fellow Illinois coal mining town West Frankfurt (who will be appearing later in the 52 weeks). As I mentioned earlier, Johnston City knew how to recruit and included in the side for that 1st Round Open Cup win was Frank Vaughn, who would go on to roster for the 3rd place 1930 USA Men’s World Cup team!

The win over West Frankfurt earned a 2nd round game in Chicago, where Johnston City avenged their earlier Chicago defeat with a 3-2 victory over Swedish-Americans at Riverview Park. Waiting in the third round was 1921 Cup runners up and St. Louis powerhouse Scullin Steel. The Illinois Miners gave Scullin a good game (which was not without a “goal allowed” controversy), before bowing out 2-0. Scullin ultimately went on to win the 1922 Open Cup final at the same field they had defeated Johnston City.

During the remainder of the 1920’s Johnston City continued their soccer success, but the county in which it is located, Williamson, was not an accommodating place for everyone. It was a stronghold of the domestic terrorist Ku Klux Klan, which controlled nearby communities and made life as difficult as possible for any person of color or non-white protestant Christian in the area.

Illinois Miner Newspaper 13 Jan 1923, p. 1

Mining unions were active in attempting to advocate for workers’ human rights, but the dangers of coal mining can be highlighted by the story of William James “Billy” Hope. He immigrated to the US in 1910 from Durham County, England and accompanied Pullman star Fred Bockley from England on the Lusitania in 1912 when Blockley immigrated. Hope was a coal miner and an excellent soccer player who played in that 1911 drubbing by Hyde Park Blues. He continued his career but was tragically killed in 1925 by a pile of coal falling on him.

High quality soccer in Johnston City continued into the 1930’s, but as coal mining jobs disappeared, the local economy struggled, the population thinned, and the soccer teams discontinued. The effects of the turbulent 1920’s are clearly still in evidence today. The population is almost 100% white, and as I drove into town in 2022, I was greeted with another reminder that, though exploring historic soccer communities is rewarding, just as there are those in the US soccer community (MLS decision makers) who do not believe in participating in a fair and equal sporting competition, there are people in those former coal mining communities who still believe that an equitable society is not one worth achieving.

Rich Seams of Soccer History in Illinois Coal Fields

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