In the fall of 1922, Leonard H. Raney played on the first-ever varsity soccer team for Kearny High School. That New Jersey town, which would later be dubbed Soccer Town, USA, had long been a soccer hotbed. It was rare for African Americans to play soccer in the 1920s, and while African-American participation in the game still lags today, Raney was a soccer pioneer.
A look at Black players on the “Barrow School Socker Foot Ball Team,” champions of Springfield, Massachusetts’ Junior League in 1908.
Our series of Q&As with Philadelphia-born National Soccer Hall of Famer Len Oliver continues.
Len Oliver’s series on playing soccer in Philadelphia in the 1940s and 1950s continues with a look at how the high school and college game benefited from local clubs.
