This week, the last club from the Division II USL Championship will continue their journey into the U.S. Open Cup Round of 16. The underdog Pittsburgh Riverhounds face Major League Soccer frontrunners Philadelphia Union in a battle that will split the loyalties of soccer fans in the Keystone State.
And while the history of both of those clubs only extends back a few decades (1999 and 2010 respectively) the roots of Pennsylvanian soccer run as deep as you can go, bridging three centuries of American sporting history.
Because the sport dominated the European consciousness when the largest waves of immigrants came to this country through the late 19th and into the 20th centuries, people brought the world’s game with them to these new shores.
When the shift whistle blew at the industrial jobs those immigrants came here to fill, the factories would empty out into the streets and local parks. There, newly-minted Americans played the sport of their home country. Much like their food and languages, styles of dress and culture, the game of soccer traveled with them across the Atlantic to their new neighborhoods on the East coast.
When the textile industry began to flourish in the United States, specifically in the Philadelphia area, immigrants – with experience in that type of skilled labor – flocked to work in the American mills. The American textile industry goes all the way back to the founding of Philadelphia in 1682, long before the city was home to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Those massive waves of immigration from the mid-to-late 1880s brought the recently-formalized sport of association football/soccer to the City of Brotherly Love. According to soccer historian Ed Farsnworth, the game flourished in the neighborhoods of Kensington, Frankford, Port Richmond and Tacony.
Pittsburgh is 300 miles west of Philadelphia, but that city’s soccer origins are built on similar immigrant-fueled foundations. As industry flourished in the so-called Steel City, immigrants flocked to the factories and brought their game along with them too. Beadling SC, which claims to be “the oldest continuously operated soccer club in the country,” was founded in 1898.
Joined by other clubs of the era and region such as Braddock, Curry, Dunleavy and Sturgeon, Beadling played in the Monongahela Valley League and the Central Association Foot Ball League, which was known informally as the Miners League. That’s according to the Society for American Soccer History Archives, which also names Pittsburgh as “one of the eight or so major centers of soccer activity during the first half of the 20th century.”
Of course, when people think of the origins of Pennsylvania soccer history, they think of Bethlehem Steel. By any measure, this was the first super-club of American soccer, and it got its legs under it right when the first U.S. Open Cup – known previously as the National Challenge Cup – was coming to fruition in 1913 (with the first Final being played in 1914).
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is about an hour and a half north of Philadelphia, just east of Allentown. Much like the rest of Pennsylvania at the turn of the last century, the city of Bethlehem was focused on industry. And the particular brand of industry was steel production.
Bethlehem Steel was for much of its history a major producer of steel, at one time the second-largest steel company in the world (behind only the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel). So as soccer began to grow in popularity among the local population, the largest local employer in the Bethlehem area began to invest money into professionalizing the recreational club.
Professional players were brought in and the club built the country’s first soccer-specific stadium, part of which still stands. Bethlehem Steel FC competed in the first U.S. Open Cup in 1913-1914, losing in the Third Round 1-0 to NY side Brooklyn FC.
Bethlehem Steel played most of their history in the American Soccer League (ASL), which ranked among the most professional of the many regional soccer leagues in the country at the time. During the club’s 20-year run, the Steelworkers, as they were known, claimed five U.S. Open Cups and nine league championships.
The team was well-known for attracting talented players from European leagues to play in the little hamlet of Bethlehem, PA.
While Bethlehem Steel got the ball rolling a century ago, they’re far from the only team from the area to lift the Open Cup. Uhrik Truckers (also known as Philadelphia German-American) won the 1936 edition and went to two further Finals. Pittsburgh Gallatin (1942) and Morgan-Strasser (1949) also lifted the Open Cup.
In all, six teams from the Keystone State have claimed 14 Open Cup titles. Only the states of New York and California can claim more Open Cup titles than Pennsylvania.
The Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals dominated the competition in the 1950s and 60s, claiming four titles. The Harmarville Hurricanes – from the coal mines in the Pittsburgh area – nabbed two Open Cup crowns in 1952 and 1956.
“We were the best team in American soccer at the time,” said the late Alexandre Ely, playmaker for the Philly Ukrainian teams of old (Open Cup Champs in 1960, 1961, 1963 and 1966). “We didn’t play like other teams played – we liked to keep the ball and move it around.”
Without Pennsylvania’s participation in the sport, we might not even have a Soccer Hall of Fame – where Ukrainian legend Ely was inducted as part of the Class of 1997.
The HOF was founded by the Philadelphia Oldtimers Soccer Association. A group of former players from the area originally formed the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1950, formally inducting its first 15 members. Three years later, the National Soccer Hall of Fame was transferred to the United States Soccer Football Association (eventually renamed US Soccer).
Today, one of the largest amateur soccer leagues in the region operates in Philadelphia. CASA boasts hundreds of teams in almost every age group, filled with over 10,000 players from the greater Philadelphia area. Amateur soccer is huge in the state of Pennsylvania, from local youth leagues to amateur adult clubs. The state is filled with players who may someday dot the rosters of soccer clubs around the world, following in the footsteps of arguably the best American soccer player of all time, Christian Pulisic (a native of Hershey, PA).
So when the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, our farthest reaching Cinderella and 2023 Quarterfinalists face the three-time Open Cup Runners-up the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday, it’s a lot more than just the last-standing USL Championship club taking on an MLS club known for producing talented young stars (like Philadelphia-born Cavan Sullivan, 15, who was outstanding in the Union’s Round of 32 win over Indy Eleven). It’s soccer history taking place on the most hallowed of grounds.
As long as people have played soccer in this country, there have been Pennsylvanians on the field. This matchup (LIVE on Paramount+ at 7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 21) continues a tradition that spans three separate centuries.
Dan Vaughn is a veteran soccer journalist and the founder and editor of Protagonist Soccer. Follow him at @danvaughn.bsky.social on Bluesky.