![]() ![]() Ball Park, Broad and Huntingdon” and the other at “Stenton Grounds at Wayne Junction.” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer) This advertisement from page six of the Philadelphia Inquirer of October 13, 1894, promotes two professional league games to be held that day, one at “Philada. Interest in the game was strong enough that most league teams fielded reserve sides of junior players. For high-profile intercity games, attendance reportedly exceeded two thousand spectators. Meanwhile, non-league sides organized games of their own. Philadelphia sides were soon traveling as far afield as Trenton, New York, and Pittsburgh for games. Philadelphia’s first organized league, the Pennsylvania Association Football Union (PAFU), formed in 1889 and included teams from Philadelphia, Chester, and Eddystone. In addition to playing other Philadelphia sides, inexpensive rail transportation allowed Philadelphia teams to also play teams from nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania Trenton, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. Early teams formed in association with ethnic, social, or athletic clubs, some of which were workplace-based. In its beginnings, soccer in Philadelphia was largely played by British immigrants, many of whom were employed in the city’s textile industry, particularly in the Kensington, Frankford, Port Richmond, and Tacony neighborhoods. In the decades that followed, area players, teams, and administrators helped to establish the Philadelphia region as a leading center of the game in the United States. Over the next three decades, as the contemporary game became established, amateur leagues were founded at both the youth and senior level, professional league soccer began, and players from the Philadelphia area participated in regional, national, and international games. ![]() Various forms of football were played in Philadelphia before that time and after, but the first game of soccer in the city “under proper rules” took place on March 19, 1881. The rules of Association football, known in the United States as soccer, were formulated in England in 1863. Soccer has been played in the Philadelphia area since the late nineteenth century. Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You Back. ![]()
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