New York Times soccer article from 1885
Last week, the New York Times unleashed their massive archives onto unsuspecting internet slobs everywhere.
By removing the so-called “paywall” that kept hundreds of millions of readers at bay, the Times relented to common sense and opened their archives (dating back to 1851) and other “Times Select” content to the general public.
This decision led enterprising people to dig through the mess to find some olde-timey goodness. Per the norm, Kottke did it best.
I did a little searching of my own to discover that the first mention of soccer in the New York Times (at least in the searchable archives) was on June 19, 1885. The article is entitled “Football By Electric Light” and is intriguing for a few reasons:
- “Electric light” was evidently rare enough to warrant a mention in the headline
- We still called it football (association football)
- The article was all of 32 words long. (And you thought soccer coverage in America was dismal today!)
- It is printed proof that there has never been a respectable New York soccer club prior to or since Pele’s Cosmos. I kid…
Here’s how it looked:
As a point of reference, this article appeared 22 years after the English F.A. ushered in the modern game.
Stay tuned for more of “From the NYT Archives.”
9 comments
[...] All the news that’s fit to print from 1885 (ThroughBall) Category: World Football Tags: World Football, Tag Index « The First Lady of Chelsea is a real pisser | Home | [...]
Wonder when they started calling it soccer and who started it?
Football by Electric Light - circa 1885…
Like many, I cheered the NY Times when they finally euthanized Times Select and let poor/cheap people like me back into the opinion columns. But they also opened up their archives going back over a century. What a fantastic move - even if they were mot…
Football by Electric Light - circa 1885…
Like many, I cheered the NY Times when they finally euthanized Times Select and let poor/cheap people like me back into the opinion columns. But they also opened up their archives going back over a century. What a fantastic move - even if they were mot…
Good question.
I know the governing body of U.S. soccer was originally called “U.S. Football Association” (1913-1944).
From 1945-1973 it was called “U.S. Soccer Football Association” (if you squint, it almost appears as “U.S. asSOCiation Football…).
In 1973, they assumed the name we all know, “U.S. Soccer Federation”
[...] The blog Throughball is beginning a series of posts on old New York Times articles on soccer. Josh begins with one from 1885. [...]
I think the focus of the article was that a game was played under lights not that they are reporting football (meaning soccer). They are using football in the generic sense.
I note that they refer to the clubs as Association football clubs. They would have understood the differences between the codes better back then,
“I think the focus of the article was that a game was played under lights not that they are reporting football (meaning soccer).”
You’ll note that I said one of the focuses was the electric light.
My point wasn’t that they were reporting about soccer but that this was the earliest mention of soccer in the New York Times.
[...] far, we’ve read a few articles from the early 20th century and even one from the late 1800s. But, the New York Times archives can teach us about recent history [...]
Leave a Comment