Feb. 3, 1929 – New York Nationals win Lewis Cup
Post by frankdellapa@gmail.com
The Nationals and New Bedford Whalers were even, 4-4, on aggregate, so this was the deciding match, staged “before an enthusiastic crowd of 4,000 fans at Hawthorne Field in Brooklyn,” according to The Boston Globe account. The Nationals took a 4-2 victory, the Whalers squandering the advantage after a scoreless first half.
New Bedford was led by 40-year-old Sam Chedgzoy, a star at Everton and with the England national team, plus Jeremiah Best (formerly of Newcastle and Leeds United) and Scottish international Jimmy Howieson. The Whalers’ center half was Jimmy Montgomerie, who in late February would play in his 200th consecutive American Soccer League match (he totaled 303 career games).
“The shooting of Best and Chedgzoy, the two outside men in the New Bedford line, was one of the outstanding features of the play,” and the Whalers took the lead “from the first breakaway following the restart, Chedgzoy scored with a beauty of a pass from Howieson.”
The Nationals recovered for a 3-1 lead on a 74th-minute Jimmy Gallagher goal. A 21-year-old Arnie Oliver, among the best U.S.-born players of the era, entered as a substitute for Mike McLeavy, and the Whalers cut the deficit as Sam Kennedy scored “on a mixup” before Gallagher converted the final goal. Gallagher had moved to the U.S. from Scotland, signing his first professional contract at age 20 with J&P Coats of Pawtucket for the 1921-22 season.
The Nationals’ Gallagher and Liverpool-born Bart McGhee, plus Oliver, would go on to join the U.S. national team for the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930.
This competition, “emblem of supremacy in the American Soccer League,” was named for Bethlehem Steel Company vice president Horace Edgar Lewis, who was “instrumental in the formation of the American Soccer League,” according to Colin Jose’s account of the history of the league.
The New York Nationals were a dominant team in cup competitions, having captured the U.S. Open Cup in April. Ironically, a dispute over entry into cup competitions led by Nationals’ owner Horace Stoneham led to the “Soccer War” that disrupted the ASL in 1929 and sparked the decline of professional soccer in the U.S.