American Soccer League (1933-1983)

Background

The American Soccer League (1933-1983) began life in the big cities and outlying industrial areas of the Northeast during the Great Depression.  In fact, the league referred to here is actually a reincarnation of the original ASL, which played in New England, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania from 1921 to 1933.

For most of its 50-year existence, the ASL was a cluster of ethnically-identified clubs in the Northeast.  Teams came and went on annual basis, often dropping out or changing identities in the middle of seasons.  See the alphabetical listings below just for the city of Baltimore to get an idea of the churn. Until 1969, the ASL played a fall-to-spring schedule that mirrored the traditional football calendar played in Europe and elsewhere.  In 1969, the ASL switched to the summer schedule more familiar to American fans.

1970’s: Nationwide Expansion

When the tide began to rise for pro soccer in the United States during the 1970’s, the league began to expand its geographic footprint and take on the trappings of larger pro leagues.  By 1972, the ethnic team names were largely gone, although a few clubs such as the New York Apollo (formerly the New York Greeks) chose names that still hewed to the ethnic identities of their organizers.  The league hired former Boston Celtics star Bob Cousy as Commissioner.  Cousy was the first to admit he knew little about the game of soccer, but it was assumed that the future Pro Basketball Hall-of-Famer would raise the league’s national PR profile and he did.  By 1976, the ASL reached the West Coast, launching expansion franchises from Los Angeles to Tacoma. Eventually, the league took out office space on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

During this time, the ASL served as the 2nd Division league in the United States to the far bigger-budgeted North American Soccer League (1968-1984).  It was not uncommon for ASL teams to lose their top players to the NASL, although the escalator sometimes ran in the other direction as well, with top NASL and foreign stars such as Phil Parkes, Eusebio and Jeff Bourne sometimes slumming it for a few seasons or playing out their final days before small crowds in ASL cities.

Demise

Ultimately, the ASL’s boom period in the 1970’s was unsustainable, just as the NASL’s was.

The league retreated from the West Coast for good following the 1980 season. By 1983, the ASL was effectively clustered in the Deep South, of all places, with the exception of two outlier clubs in Detroit and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The league folded following the 1983 season after a small group of owners defected to launch the doomed United Soccer League (1984-1985), leaving the ASL with too few clubs to continue.  A new East Coast-based league launched in 1988 reviving the American Soccer League name, but this was an entirely different organization.

American Soccer League Franchises

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Downloads

1981 American Soccer League Schedule

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