John Nyen on the U.S. Open Cup.
Ninety-two
years ago there was some big news in association football.
World War I was finally finished and in England, official competitive football was allowed to
resume (between 1914 to 1919 the FA Cup and League Cup were suspended due to the war with regional
competitions taking place in their stead).
The Bethlehem Steel FC tour to St. Louis in December of 1916 for the unofficial title of
"Champions of America" was not the first time a Philadelphia-area team had made a trip out West.
Five years before, Tacony FC, the winners of the American Football Association's American Cup
tournament in 1910 and a semifinalist in the tournament in 1911, had made the same trip in what
would be the first of a series of exhibition matches between St.
