The Globe -- South Bethlehem
Tuesday, December 11, 1917
Soccer Notes

"Jimmy" Wilson, one-time player of note in Scotland and for four years a member of the champion Bethlehem Steel team, where he played center halfback, has been secured to coach the Lehigh soccer team.

Bethlehem Steel soccer team is scheduled to play Jersey City at Jersey City on Sunday in a National League game. If the Steel Workers show anything like the form they displayed against Disston on Saturday they ought to have little trouble with the Jerseyites. But so many upsets have taken place in this League to date that the past records of Jersey will be forgotten and the Steel Workers will treat them as seriously as any other team in the league.

No player on the Bethlehem soccer teams deserves mention above any of his team-mates as a result of the game against Disston on Saturday. From goal to outside left every man worked like a Trojan with the one object in view -- and that was defeat Disston.

If Disston had been successful in calling the game off between the halves, it would have been a great injustice to the Steel Workers, who struggled for 45 minutes against the most adverse weather conditions ever encountered in a soccer game in this country, and the Sawmakers are not likely to forget their 25 minutes of the same conditions in the second half.

Captain Pepper repeatedly refused to allow any curtailment, being grimly determined to see it through and the full time would have been played if the Sawmakers had stuck to their guns. Four Disston players had left the field before Referee Walders blew his whistle.

Disston are scheduling to play here in a National League game on Christmas Day, and the Steel Workers are drawn to go to Philadelphia early in January in the third round of the National Cup, so that at least two more great contests between these teams will take place this season.

The only Steel Worker who seemed glad to hear the final whistle was Whelan, the goaltender, who was so lonely in the second half that he almost froze to death.

Several Philadelphia sporting scribes must have been making their soccer debut, one stated several penalties were awarded, another described Spalding as the right left fullback.


1917-1918
Bethlehem Steel Soccer Club