Just published: Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth

In less than eighteen months, the FIFA men’s World Cup will come to the USA and one of the host cities is Boston. The history of soccer and football in North America is longer than often believed and has strong links to Boston, one of the oldest cities in the country. One significant piece of this history is a nearly 100-year-old monument which stands on Boston Common, the principal park in the heart of the city. The stone tablet records the achievements of the Oneida Football Club in the 1860s who have been retrospectively granted the title of founders of both soccer (association football) and American football.

In a new book entitled Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer, and the Origins of a National Myth, CIES’s Kevin Tallec Marston, along with his fellow long-time FIFA Master lecturer Mike Cronin, explore together the history of football and soccer in the USA. On January 29, hosted by Boston College’s Irish Studies, Tallec Marston and Cronin launched the book at a public conference which included an exhibition of Oneida Football Club artifacts. The event’s highlight was a stimulating panel discussion with historians Amy Bass (Manhattanville University) and Brian Bunk (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). The FIFA Museum, Historic New England, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Noble and Greenough School, the National Soccer Hall Of Fame, and Revolutionary Spaces all supported the exhibition.

The book is a study of memory, sporting origins, and explores the role of history in public life. The authors critically examine how history actually becomes history through the preservation, interpretation, and even the manipulation of memory, artifacts, and archives. With fun sleuthing and some unexpected twists, the book reveals the hidden mysteries and mischievousness around the famous Oneida Football Club and their claiming a sporting history first.

Kevin Tallec Marston is Senior Research Fellow & Lecturer at CIES, and FIFA Master Alumnus. 

Mike Cronin is Director of Boston College Ireland.

The book is published in the Public History in Historical Perspective Series with University of Massachusetts Press. It is available for order here - https://www.umasspress.com/9781625348432/inventing-the-boston-game/.