Few signs remain that Paterson FC's 1923 championship team ever existed
It is the dream for some fans (are you listening New York Mets): A wealthy new owner stirs up the league by buying the best players available and ends the season with a trophy.
The thing is, it has already happened — 100 years ago to a soccer team in Paterson.
The Passaic Daily News claimed Paterson FC's owner and manager, New York City fur trader Adolph Buslik, would "always be held in high esteem by the soccer enthusiasts in this vicinity" after winning the National Challenge Cup, now known as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, less than a year after buying the club in 1922. Yet, today there are few signs that Buslik and his National Champions ever actually existed.
Lost to time
Paterson FC's home field, Olympic Park off Main Avenue in Clifton, is no more. Harrison Field, the site of the 1923 Cup Final, is covered by a parking garage with a view of Red Bull Arena. Paterson FC's own name was lost in 1924, when it became the National Giants Soccer Club.
The legacy nonetheless remains. Dig through the first names in the National Soccer Hall of Fame's list of inductees and find four Paterson players. The last to be enshrined, Tommy Duggan, was perhaps the most important. A right-sided playmaker who fed speedy striker Bill McKenna, the Liverpudlian was one of many foreign names on Buslik's revamped Paterson FC.
Three others were enshrined even earlier. Team Capt. Bill Fryer, a goal-scoring fullback who emigrated from England in 1921, was inducted in 1951. Goalkeeper Peter Renzulli and forward Johnny McGuire, the 30-year-old Scotsman who would ultimately win three consecutive cups, were also inducted that year.
At the time, they were some of the highest-priced players available on the East Coast, the New York Daily News reported. Renzulli, one of Buslik's first signings, had won the cup in 1921 with Brooklyn Robins Dry Dock.
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Soon after Buslik bought the team in September 1922, The News of Paterson was crowing about the team's progress.
"Manager Ad Buslik has spared neither expense nor time in order to weld together a first-class combination to represent this city," it reported.
Beyond spending big on his team, Buslik backed local youth organizations. A German-born supporter of the sport made wealthy by importing furs for the New York fashion industry from his European connections, he ensured Paterson F.C. was the first American club to welcome Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C., a powerhouse women's team from England, to an exhibition match. The women would beat several men's sides in the states but lost, 6-3, to Paterson F.C. in September 1922.
Paterson F.C. also prevailed in a preseason exhibition win over the eventual American Soccer League champions, J&P Coats of Pawtucket.
Despite a strong start, it would be two months before Paterson F.C. would play its first match in the National Challenge Cup. Its first two cup games, against Harrison FC and Entre Nous FC of Newark, were won by forfeit. Harrison FC was a later starter of a club that did not have enough players to compete.
Its first cup match wasn't held until Nov. 26. By then, the team was in a bad spot. It was coming off a draw and a protested match against J&P that saw their fullback break his wrist after 20 minutes and fall unconscious at the half. The rest of the team didn't fare much better against J&P's kickouts and roughhouse tactics.
"The Patersons were all crippled," The Paterson Morning Call reported.
Moreover, they were left with an interim manager in Paul Tihany. Buslik had left for England about two weeks prior to conduct some business and sign some players, The Paterson Morning Call reported. He almost didn't make it back.
His steamship, La Savoie, had portholes smashed by massive waves during its late December approach to New York Harbor.
"Prayer alone saved the ship," he told the Passaic Daily Herald.
Buslik nonetheless came home to a winner. His team scored two second-half goals to take a 2-0 win over American AA at Olympic Park.
While it was the big game of the day, The Paterson Morning Call reported, it was of secondary importance in Passaic County. That day, six amateur teams batted in the first round of the county cup tournament.
Though few headlines followed the win, The Daily Herald credited Tihany's caretaking talents for Paterson FC's progress to the cup's fourth round.
"He used all the resourcefulness of the soccer-wise Buslik and had his men playing a perfect game," it reported.
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Another easy win would come six weeks later, on Jan. 7, 1923. After several postponements due to poor conditions at Olympic Park, Paterson FC faced winners of 12 straight games in Hartford Rovers and went up 4-0 at the half. The 6-0 win on a field still dotted with icy patches was little more than a workout, The Paterson Morning Call reported."If the Patersons had been forced to work hard, they could have run up a much larger score," it wrote. "After making sure of the verdict, they took things easy and avoided all chances of injury."
The win set up a tie with a team Paterson FC beat 6-3 one month earlier, rivals New York Field Club. The game, however, wouldn't be until March 11. February snowstorms in Harrison delayed the contest.
The snowmelt brought its own complications. The News reported the field would have made a better duck pond than a football field.
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Paterson FC nonetheless started hot, winning seven corner kicks in the first 10 minutes. They were perhaps too hot. A fight broke out in the first half. Paterson FC's participant, halfback James Scott, was suspended for the rest of the tournament. Two men connected with New York were also kicked out by Harrison cops after causing a disturbance along the sideline.
The game was a mess, The Morning Call reported. After controlling the first half, Paterson was on the back foot for spells as a result of the field conditions.
"Neither team could display any football science and this is all that saved the New York team from a first-class beating," it wrote. "The locals played rings around them but could not get in a shot on account of the slippery conditions."
A replay one week later saw New York match Paterson's fast start.
"For fifteen minutes, there was little to choose between them," The Morning Call reported. "Then, Paterson scored the first goal of the game."
A header from Duggan put Paterson up at the half, but the team had missed several opportunities, according to the Passaic Daily News. There was nonetheless a reason for optimism as the conditions at Harrison Field had greatly improved.
Early in the second half, two more goals arrived "and that took the heart out of Gotham's combination," the Passaic Daily News wrote.
The Morning Call declared the 4-1 win in front of a crowd of 8,000 predominantly one-sided.
"The Patersons played all around the New York team and beat them so handily that even the most rabid New York soccer fan was forced to admit their superiority," it wrote.
Next up was a match with the best team in the American Soccer League, J&P Coats.
On March 25, Paterson FC returned to Harrison Field and a crowd of 9,000. Again, the team started with momentum.
Duggan's off-ball runs were causing problems, but the team's progress in the first half was thwarted by a heavy wind at its back. They went down 2-0 by halftime.
There appeared little hope after 45 minutes, The News reported.
"Only the most sanguine of the Jersey rooters could see any hope for their favorite," it wrote.
Still, 2-0 proved to be the most dangerous lead in soccer. The Morning Call wrote that the team's down-in-the-mouth look was replaced with a do-or-die expression.
But Paterson FC rallied to win, with Duggan scoring two goals, including the winner.
"Pandemonium broke loose in the stands." The News reported. "The Paterson outfit ... is considered one of the best in the county and is without a doubt as good as they come."
The 1923 National Challenge Cup Final awaited, as did Scullin Steel FC of St. Louis.
Boasting an almost exclusively American-born lineup of mostly local talent, Scullin specialized in the domestic long-passing game. Paterson FC, on the other hand, was packed with foreigners. Only three of its players were American born. The other 11 all hailed from England and Scotland, including Duggan and Fryer, the captain.
While Scullin had a solid history of beating Paterson FC, bookmakers were with Paterson, given its home-field advantage. The Final would be contested on April 1 in Harrison.
Buslik proposed a one-week postponement but balked when cup officials said the game would then have to be moved out of state.
A crowd of 15,000 showed up at the field.
Despite winning the first two games by forfeit, Paterson FC came in to the final outscoring opponents 15 to 3. The team had used its short finesse passing to set up American style through balls but found the strategy waning against Scullin.
After the 57th minute, Paterson was again down 2-0 in a cup tie.
Spectators began to leave their seats and line the field. Police scrambled in repeated efforts to manage the crowd, but the referee James B. Stark declined to stop the game to the later criticism of the St. Louis camp.
The chaos aided Paterson, which began to play more direct in desperation.
Duggan started the goal scoring with a slow dribbler that trickled in past 22-year-old Harry "Dutch" Oellermann. Then, Duggan delivered a long ball to John Heminsley's head that hit the back of the net and tied the game at 2.
The bombardment continued, but Scullin held firm, The Paterson Morning Call reported. Oellermann, “stopped at least fifty shots," the newspaper claimed. "For full 100 minutes of the 120, the Paterson team did the forcing and time after time Oellermann set the big crowd in a frenzy by his wonderful playing," The News reported.At the end of extra time, Paterson F.C. had 29 corner kicks to Scullin's 1. The game nonetheless ended 2-2.
A replay was expected. Yet, the sides were split on where it should take place. U.S. Football Association officials were nonetheless firm. The replay would be held in the East, as policy determined.
Scullin pleaded for relief. Even St. Louis Mayor Henry Kiel filed an informal appeal to the association.
Three Scullin players were injured. Four more, including Oellermann, were signed to minor league baseball contracts and set to attend spring training. Scullin's manager, Tate Brady, said the four could only play if the game was held in the St. Louis area.
Buslik refused. The local fans deserved the final, he said.
Scullin had to forfeit. The cup was Paterson's.
Buslik said he would have rather seen his team win the competition outright. Still, he emerged from the controversy both confident and defiant.
"It looks to me as though the St. Louis team knows they could not beat Paterson and took the opportunity of forfeiting rather than take a beating which they were sure to get," he told the local newspapers.
Brady relented that the result flattered his team.
"Our situation is unfortunate, but we would rather forfeit than lose disgracefully," he told The St. Louis Star and Times.
He also admitted Buslik's refusal to relocate the replay was fair.
“If the tie game had occurred in St. Louis, you don’t think for a minute St. Louis would allow the replay to be taken back east under any such interpretation of rules,” he said.
Less than a year after buying Paterson FC, Buslik moved the reigning National Champions out of Passaic County.
The News reported that Buslik claimed he left because Olympic Park's owners wanted to jack up his rental agreement. The newspaper also discovered that the park owners had relented to meet Buslik's demands. Buslik still moved the franchise to New York's Polo Grounds to capture larger crowds.
"Evidently, the thought of more money in the spacious Polo Grounds was uppermost in the mind of the former Paterson magnate," The News reported. "He denied this for some time, answering with the same old cry that he would never leave Paterson, even if he didn't make a nickel."
By February 1924, the club had a new name under the ownership of Morris Van de Weghe, formerly of New York FC. The Passaic Daily News reported pressure from his other business affairs compelled Buslik to sell.
Paterson FC faded away.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Few signs remain that Paterson FC's 1923 championship team existed
