A century ago, a crack English soccer team called the Pilgrims landed here, challenged Baltimore's best and offered a two-foot, $15,000 silver chalice to any club that could defeat it.
Three local teams tried — and were crushed by a combined score of 38-0.
The Brits kept the trophy, but the city struck it rich.
Humbled by the outcome, Baltimore's soccer buffs — a melange of college-educated men and blue-collar immigrants — rallied to drum up interest, organize leagues and build playing fields, some of which are still in use.
On Saturday, another of England's finest teams will hit town, and the seeds sown from those one-sided games long ago will be on display. Check out the attendance at M&T Bank Stadium, where 40,000 fans are expected to see Manchester City battle Inter Milan at 8 p.m.
On Oct. 5, 1909, at Oriole Park, 400 patrons paid 25 cents apiece to watch the Pilgrims, a team of nimble-footed gentlemen, embarrass the touted Sons of St. George, 13-0. The latter, a fraternal lodge for men of English descent in Colgate Creek, were so outclassed, The Sun reported, that "the locals began to look like beginners."
Two days later, a heralded Mount Washington team fell, 14-0, as the Pilgrims toyed with their opponents with a show worthy of the Harlem Globetrotters.
"An amusing several minutes of play came just before the close of the first half, when the ball was [head] butted from one end of the field to the other and kept in motion in this manner," The Sun reported.
Awestruck fans applauded the victors, as they did in the third game, when the Englishmen scored an 11-0 victory over a team comprised of the best players that the other two clubs could muster. In that game, The Sun wrote, two of the Pilgrims managed to play keep-away "against almost the entire local team for several minutes, seemingly enjoying the sport."
From the defeats by the Pilgrims came progress. Founded in the aftermath, the Greater Baltimore Soccer League started with four clubs and grew to 96 by 1930. Most teams had ethnic threads — Germans, Italians, English and Scots — from working-class enclaves like Locust Point, Canton, Highlandtown and Dundalk. Amateur games were fierce; fights were common.
"Community pride was at stake," said Tom Bailey, secretary of the Oldtimers Soccer Association of Maryland. "These were hardworking people, from the stevedores in Locust Point to the steelworkers in Canton. Games between those teams could be bloodbaths, and the referees who worked them always had their escape routes planned ahead of time."
Teams played from September through March, on the pitch at Patterson Park, Clifton Park and on long-gone venues like Bugle Field, O'Donnell Park and Bloomingdale Oval. In February 1940, a long cold spell prompted this missive from league officials:
"If the official Weather Bureau registers a temperature of 15 degrees Fahrenheit at noon on the day of the game, the home club is allowed the right to call it off."
Few did.
By then, the city had spawned enough talent to field two professional teams — the Baltimore Soccer Club and Baltimore German, which changed its name to the Baltimore Americans before World War II. While neither team set the American Soccer League on fire, each lived to defeat the other.
Consider the melee that took place Dec. 29, 1941 during a 2-1 victory by the Americans. Late in the game, while trying to tie the score, the losers' Leo Winterling (Poly) was decked on the sly by the opposing goalie. The Sun reported that the punch triggered "a riotous scene on the field, with man-to-man battles all over the place."
Afterward, outside Bugle Field, Winterling and the Americans' goalie, Lou Maurer, squared off again, as players from both teams eagerly piled on. Two cops directing post-game traffic on Edison Highway hurried over to break up the fight. Maurer was whisked off to Johns Hopkins Hospital, his face badly beaten.
Both teams had home-grown, high-scoring stars. For the Baltimore Soccer Club, it was Charley Ernst (Calvert Hall), who led the league in scoring in 1937 with a patented pivot shot that was well ahead of the day. The Americans rode the strong right leg of Nick Kropfelder (Mount St. Joseph), who led them to Baltimore's only ASL championship in 1946.
"Games were rough and played on dirt, but you didn't mind," said Kropfelder, 87, who was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1996. "I got paid, maybe eight bucks a game, but I would have played for nothing.
"We had true fans, too, like the four Rebbel brothers [Nick, John, Frank and Charles] who'd stand behind the other team's goalie at Canton Park and give him a really hard time."
By 1950, however, interest in pro soccer had petered out.
"The Colts came to town, and football took all of the fans," Kropfelder said.
For the next 30 years, a number of outdoor pro teams came and went. In the American Soccer League, the Baltimore Rockets (1953) begat Baltimore Pompei (1957), which begat Baltimore St. Gerards (1966), which begat the Baltimore Flyers (1967).
That same year, the Baltimore Bays arrived — a hodgepodge of mostly foreign-born kickers with names like Nana (from Ghana) and Willie Mfum. Purchased by the Orioles, the Bays played in cavernous Memorial Stadium, won their division in the North American Soccer League, then fired their coach during the playoffs and lost the championship.
With few local players, save for Joey Speca, of Highlandtown, the Bays floundered at the gate. By 1968, their losses rose to $500,000; crowds fell to 4,000. A year later, the club was gone, only to be resurrected in 1972 as an independent team with a tight budget and an iffy schedule (the Bays once went six weeks between games).
Speca, the coach, earned half ($100 a week) of what he'd made as Speca, the player. The Bays' cheerleaders practiced their routines in the team's spartan Towson office. Nonetheless, the Bays managed to cut a team record, which received some airplay. And they played ballyhooed Moscow Dynamo to a 3-3 tie, after which the Russians stormed into the Bays' clubhouse at Memorial Stadium, demanding a rematch. The Bays declined.
Bays II folded in 1973, having lost $150,000. But not before hosting a heralded game against Santos, of Brazil, and its mythic star, Pele. The contest drew nearly 25,000 fans, who saw Pele score in the first 15 seconds en route to a 6-4 victory for the Brazilians.
Undaunted, in 1974 the city welcomed the Baltimore Comets, who flamed out after drawing sparse crowds (2,600 per game) and losing $750,000 in two years in the NASL.
Meanwhile, the college game flourished. Drawing from a wealth of local talent, the University of Baltimore and Loyola College won consecutive NCAA Division II championships in 1975 and 1976, respectively. Some of those players later suited up for the Baltimore Blast, which introduced indoor soccer here in 1980 and which has survived, in some form, for 30 years. The Blast, with an average home attendance of 6,200, has won six Major Indoor Soccer League titles, most recently in 2009.
In 2006, Crystal Palace Baltimore became the city's 11th pro soccer franchise, competing in the U.S. Soccer Federation Division 2 Pro League.
"The game has changed considerably. I'm glad I grew up when I did," said Kropfelder, the grandson of German immigrants, who was raised in Canton. "We didn't have cars or computers. We were outside playing soccer all the time.
"I'd get home from Sacred Heart School at 2:30, change clothes and head for the schoolyard at P.S. 230. There were no goals and no lines, but that's where we all learned the game."
And left their mark on Baltimore.