December 15 (1910)

The professional St. Louis Soccer League says it probably will call Chicago’s bluff and cancel negotiations to have the Hyde Park Blues, one of Chicago’s top teams, play two matches at Athletic Park in St. Louis on Sunday, Jan. 1, and Monday, Jan. 2. With New Year’s Day falling on Sunday, giving many people the day off work on Monday, Jan. 1-2 are opportunities to stage important soccer games in St. Louis guaranteed to draw big crowds. Big crowds generate good paydays for St. Louis League players, who are paid from gate receipts. Chicago’s Blues fit the bill as a crowd draw. An ethnic British team, the Blues will win Chicago’s Association Football League championship in the 1910-11 season. The Blues also will win the 1911 Peel Cup, an open competition that draws primarily from amateur and professional Chicago teams in 1911. The Hyde Park Blues seemingly agree to play in St. Louis for 25 percent of gate receipts after the first $400. But the Association Football League instructs the Blues to demand a percentage of the entire gate, including the first $400. The Blues’ new terms would require a crowd of at least 1,600 fans before St. Louis players would get a cut of the gate, according to St. Louis newspapers. “The St. Louis men refuse to stand for the shakedown and unless the Hyde Parks agree to the original terms, they will not perform here,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports in its Dec. 16, 1910, issue. Negotiations collapse, and 1910 holiday soccer will see a match pitting professional side St. Leo’s, the dominant team in St. Louis soccer from 1905-1915, against a St. Louis all-star team on Jan. 2. St. Leo’s wins, 2-0. Frigid weather results in a crowd numbering only about 600 at Athletic Park, Garrison and North Market Streets.