|
 One
of the knocks against U.S. soccer in the NASL years was that
while American soccer could produce good goalkeepers, defenders
and midfielders, it could not develop world-class strikers. This
it was claimed took more time.
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Personal Information |
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Class of 1950 |
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Born: December 21, 1897 - Glasgow, Scotland |
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Died: May 27, 1985 - Kearny, NJ |
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Position: Forward |
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Int'l
Caps: 2 |
Int'l
Goals: 4 |
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If that was true in the 1970s and 1980s, then it certainly was
not true in the 1920s when the American game developed such
prolific goal scorers as Archie Stark, Johnny Nelson and Davie
Brown.
Stark, who was
born in Scotland but grew up in New Jersey, was perhaps the most
prolific and best known of them all. Between 1921 and 1931
playing in the professional American Soccer League, Stark scored
253 goals, including a record 67 in 44 games, for Bethlehem
Steel during the 1924-25 season. Stark also scored at least
four (some sources say five) in the U.S.' 6-1 win over Canada at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in 1925. In fact Stark scored more than
300 goals in his career against teams that contained many top
European players. Today Stark ranks among the top First
Division goalkeepers of all time, listed by the International
Federation of Football History and Statistics.
Nelson was second
only to Stark in the ASL. He joined the Brooklyn Wanderers as a
teen-ager from local side Yonkers Thistle and rang up 223 goals
in a career that took him from Brooklyn to Fall River to J&P
Coats and then on to the New York Nationals. Like Stark, Nelson
was born in Scotland and when not playing soccer designed
carpets at the former Alexander Smith and Sons Carpet Co. in New
York.
The diminutive
Brown, born in East Newark, N.J., standing just 5'3" was
dynamite around the goal whether at center forward or on the
wing. Most of his career was spent with the New York Giants for
whom he scored 189 goals, third only to Stark and Nelson. During
the early months of the 1926-27 season Brown went on an
incredible tear, scoring 21 goals in nine games, including a
record seven against Philadelphia. Several weeks later he
notched another five against Providence.
Neither Stark,
Nelson or Brown were on the US World Cup team in 1930. Stark
turned down the opportunity, for business reasons, it is said.
Nelson was not even given a trial, but scored twice in a warm up
game against the Montevideo bound squad, for the New York
Nationals. Brown was considered, but was in poor health at the
time. Stark and Brown are in the Hall of Fame, but Nelson is
not. Archibald McPherson Stark, was however, the best known of
the three.
Born in Glasgow,
December 21, 1897, he arrived in New Jersey to settle in West
Hudson at the age of 13 with his parents and his two brothers
Tommy and Jimmy, never having played organized soccer. Soon
Archie, and his brother Tommy, were playing as twin full backs
for the West Hudson Juniors against the famous Alley Boys.
Archie signed a
pro form with the Scottish-Americans at the age of 14 during the
1912-13 season and scored the only goal when the team won the
American Football Association Cup in 1915 by beating Brooklyn
Celtic 1-0 at Bartell's Oval in Vailsburg, N.J. One year later
he was on the losing side in the AFA final when the Scottish
Americans were beaten 3-0 in the final by Bethlehem Steel. Soon
after he moved on to the Babcock and Wilcox team in Bayonne,
N.J. where he remained until he donned a uniform for Uncle Sam
when the U.S. entered in the World War One in 1917.
Upon his return
from serving in France, Archie signed with the Erie A.A. of
Kearny, N.J., and it was his spectacular play there that made
his reputation. When the Eries disbanded Archie moved on and up
to the American Soccer League to play for New York Football
Club. With New York from the start of the 1921-22 season until
the end of the 1923-24 season he played in 69 league games and
scored 45 goals.
But it was with
Bethlehem Steel, in a team of experienced Scottish
professionals, that he really made his name. In that first
1924-25 season playing alongside outstanding players like Bob
McGregor, Bill Carnihan, Tommy Maxwell, Johnny Rollo and Malcolm
Goldie, he set a world record for goals in one season with 67 in
44 league games and added three more in 2 league cup games. His
goal scoring exploits continued through six seasons with
Bethlehem Steel during which time he won a U.S. Open Cup winners
medal, in the final of 1926 against St. Louis Ben Miller's,
scoring three times in a 7-2 victory.
He went to Europe
in the summer of 1930 as a guest player with Fall River
Marksmen. It was an ill-advised venture, for the team, and the
tour ended abruptly in Budapest. The players were left stranded
and had to return third class as immigrants, turning in their
tourist tickets to obtain train fare to Cherbourg to board the
boat.
When Bethlehem
Steel, one of America's greatest ever teams, folded in the
summer of 1930 he moved back to New Jersey and ended up playing
for the Irish-Americans in the reformed ASL in 1933-34. In that
season, as in so many before it, he was the league's leading
goalscorer. He even got a hat-trick, scoring three goals in 35
minutes, playing against the U.S. World Cup team on it's way to
the 1934 World Cup in Rome. Tom Connell the great soccer writer
for the Newark Evening News wrote of him.
"Archie Stark was considered the most artistic and polished
center-forward in America. Fast, unselfish and quick to size up
a situation, he was a master at his position. As a scorer he had
no superior, being able to shoot the ball either dead or from a
hook with skill that made some of the games experts gasp. He was
one of the few American forwards who could take quarter, half
and sometimes full turns to catch the ball on a pass while in
the air and head it into the net to fool the goalkeeper. He was
an exceptionally clean player, whose sportsmanlike attitude both
on and off the field won the admiration of his opponents as well
as his fans."
Archie died in Kearny, New Jersey on May 27, 1985. |
