American soccer writing, history & data.
A new Association Football League of St. Louis was organized for the 1904-05 due to the unpleasant ending of the former professional league at the end of the 1903-04 season. The four-teams league would play doubleheaders every Sunday at Kulage's Park.
The league's opening matches were on November 6, 1904 and the clubs taking part were Ben Miller, Diels, Woman's Magazine, and Thistles. The latter was a team of English and Scottish farm and mine workers from the French Village region. The team pitched in a proportionate share per player to join the league and was not sponsored. The league guaranteed the team full expenses. But the team found things rough going and disbanded in mid-December. A completely new Thistle team was organized in less than a week to take the place of the disbanded Thistles.
Matches had to be called off on the January 15, 1905 matchday due to cold weather and bad condition of the grounds. This situation lasted into February as games had to be called off for weeks in a row. With the league's lease at Kulage Park ending March 1, there seemed to be little hope in completing the season. On top of that Thomas Cahill, manager of the Diels and secretary of the league got into a fistfight with Henry Kulage, owner of Kulage Park. The fight occurred after an argument around the Missouri-Illinois Trolley baseball league that both men were also involved with. All this, plus a loss of $400 over the winter, soured Kulage on soccer as he decided that no soccer league could have use of his park the next season.
The league disbanded without playing another match.
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