This week's episode talks to Dr Kevin Marston about his research into the short history of America's first football club, Oneida FC of Boston, which was formed in 1862 in the midst of the American Civil War. What link did it have to American football and soccer and, perhaps even more intriguingly, how has its story been used by supporters of both codes to legitimise their heritage? It's a dispute that is stil being played out, as controversy reigns about the shape of the ball on the monument to the club on Boston Common.
Kevin’s article on the club, written with Prof Mike Cronin, will be published later this year in Mapping U.S. Soccerscapes, 1863– 1913: Immigrants, Industries, and Individuals, edited by Chris Bolsmann and George Kioussis, which will be published by the University of Tennessee Press later in 2020.
For more information about the Oneida FC, Dr Brian Bunk explores the history of the club in his Soccer History USA podcast here and you can read the 1926 manuscript of WS Scudder’s An Historical Sketch of the Oneida Football Club here.