October 26th (1947)

Oct. 26, 1947: The St. Louis Major Soccer League, the first professional soccer league in St. Louis since 1938, makes its debut at Sportsman’s Park. The league consists of four St. Louis teams and includes two future U.S Open Cup champions, Simpkins Ford and the Raiders (who will win the Cup as Kutis). DeAndreis Council and the Steamfitters make up the rest of the league, which plays Sunday doubleheaders. The new kicks off in “weather that wasn’t fit for anything but a game of penny ante or a session with the living room radio,” holding attendance to about 1,000, according to future U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame journalist Dent McSkimming in the next day’s St. Louis

Post-Dispatch. DeAndreis and the Steamfitters draw, 1-1, in the opener. In the second game, the Raiders and Simpkins “seemed very eager to get at each other to prove which is the better club,” McSkimming writes. Simpkins’ John Galimberti is ejected, and Raiders goalkeeper Manuel Muniz winds up in City Hospital II with a chipped hip bone and bruised ribs and kidney after two jarring collisions with Simpkins’ Bill Bertani. The Raiders win, 3-1. The league will move from Sportsman’s Park after the 1951-52 season to the North Side Sports Arena, a softball facility. The North Side Sports Arena will close after the 1952-53 season and the league will go out of business. The St. Louis Major teams will move to the amateur Muny League.