The St. Louis soccer scene produced five of the starting XI that upset England – and their legacy has not been forgotten
Harry Keough had a photographic memory.
The one-time U.S. international could tell you pretty much everything about every single soccer game he played in. He knew who scored first, what color socks the opponent was wearing, the weather, even the minute statistical details.
But he wasn’t actually a soccer player – not full time, at least. Keough was a postman who played the game part-time. On June 29, 1950, he and his U.S. teammates shocked the best team in the world, beating England in the World Cup in what was an unfathomable upset. And in truth, he felt bad about it.
“It's funny,” Keough’s son Ty told GOAL. “He had mentioned to me and my sisters more than once that he said he almost felt sorry for the English players, because he knew what they would have to face up to when they got back.”
Getty'In St. Louis, the soccer community was huge'
That game was, well, The Game. The United States’ remarkable 1-0 win over England at the 1950 World Cup still stands as one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports, in the same paragraph as The Miracle on Ice (U.S. hockey Olympic win over Russia), Buster Douglas’s beatdown of Mike Tyson, Joe Namath’s New York Jets’ Super Bowl stunner over Johnny Unitas’ Baltimore Colts and Leicester’s Premier League title in 2016.
It is a part of football lore, the beginnings of U.S. soccer legitimacy on a global scale, and an inflection point of the game in North America.
England were heavy favorites in the match in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, against a hastily assembled U.S. team, largely composed of part-time players. The English had a reputation as the "Kings of Football" while, in comparison, the U.S. had lost their previous seven international matches by the combined score of 45-2. For perspective, the odds that England would win that World Cup were 3-1, vs 500-1 for the U.S.
The game's only goal was scored by Haitian-born U.S. center forward Joe Gaetjens in the 37th minute. But look more closely at the roster, and this was also a deeply St. Louisian triumph. Remarkably, five of the 11 players on the winning U.S. squad were from St. Louis. More amazing, four came from the same Italian-American stronghold.
The U.S. lost their next match 5-2 to Chile, ending their 1950 World Cup run. They would not qualify for the World Cup again for another 40 years. Nonetheless, the most unexpected of victories is now forever part of the U.S. soccer canon.
And now, 75 years on, the entire St. Louis community will get the chance to reflect on one of football’s most memorable moments – well, at least from the American point of view. English fans might argue, for example, that had legendary forward Stanley Matthews been eligible to play, the score would have gone the other way.
“In St. Louis, the soccer community was huge, and soccer has always been a pretty big sport in St. Louis, so a lot of people knew about it. And, you know, they were shocked like everybody else was,” Dave Lange, a historian and long-time journalist, told GOAL.
There isn’t any particularly great footage of the match. It exists, like many games from that era, in brief clips, photos, tiny glimpses and memories of a seismic fixture.
But two facts are indisputable. The first is that the U.S. took the lead in the 37th minute. The second is that they defended out of their absolute American skin against a highly-rated England to keep it that way for the remaining 53.
AdvertisementGetty'More and more amazing the more you think about it'
St. Louis has a deep connection to the event. It wasn’t just their team, either. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was the only U.S. publication to send a reporter to that World Cup.
Those who have been around the soccer scene in Western Missouri for generations coyly argue that the upset was a long-time coming for the U.S. – with the area itself spearheading the victory. While soccer is largely a game of second generation immigrants in the United States, St. Louis is the OG – supporting the sport since the late 1800s.
“This year we submitted the 150th anniversary of the first game that was reported in the newspapers, a soccer league game in 1875,” Lange said.
The first international game played in the United States was held in St. Louis, on Christmas Day 1884. For perspective, the first known match in the UK was in 1860 and professional leagues have been playing in Europe for 100 years. Meanwhile, in St. Louis., a strong amateur league started in 1912, and tapped into well-defined European communities throughout the area.
Spaniards, Italians, Germans – they all took part in these divisions, and were playing high quality football in their own right.
“The story of soccer goes much farther back than 1950,” Lange said. “These guys who played for the United States in that game were like third- or fourth-generation soccer players in St Louis.”
And they were tough, too. That generation of footballers lived – and died – through a lot. They were all born either slightly before or during the Great Depression. Frank “Peewee” Wallace, who started against England, was captured by German soldiers during World War II, and spent 16 months in a prison camp. Frank Borghi fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Harry Keough enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday.
“What they did in Brazil, becomes more and more amazing the more you think about it,” Keough says. “They were competitive. They were gritty.”
Lange echoed that sentiment, saying “It's kind of a thread that runs all through St Louis soccer. It's us against the world.”
And this group were also all remarkably familiar with the European game. Keough’s father was a perfect example. He played left back that day against England, but would often recount the time he spent practicing and being around Spanish communities. He spent his teenage years waiting for newspapers to come in from Madrid on a week-long delay, just so he could read the soccer scores. The whole thing happened by circumstance.
“He was an Irish American kid who just happened to live a block and a half of where all the Spaniards lived,” Keough said. “They had a lot down by the Mississippi River where they would play pickup games, and the school playground was nearby. So even though he was not Spanish, he had a bit of a view of world soccer.”
For Keough, though, the sport loomed large in his youth. He was born six years after the game, and has vague memories of kicking a ball on the side of a pitch as his father played out his final days on the field. But even when he was growing up, there was a sense that the upset was a distinctly St. Louisian event – something that he might some day have to live up to.
“Growing up, it was still obviously fresh in everyone's minds, and everybody, my dad and the four St Louis guys… it’s been a big part of what I lived and witnessed,” Keough said.
Getty'He does the Cruyff move'
In some ways, Ty Keough did himself very few favors by developing into an excellent soccer player in his own right.
He played under his father at St. Louis University before going on to a professional career. Ty played with the North American Soccer League’s San Diego Sockers for four years, and followed that up with a five-year stint in the MISL – a now-defunct U.S. professional indoor league that ran from 1978-1992. He was part of a U.S. Olympic team in 1980, and would have represented the United States in the Olympics had President Jimmy Carter not elected to boycott the tournament, held that year in the Soviet Union.
Still, he has plenty of memories to take with him. Ty played against Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto and Trevor Francis. He faced off against Johan Cruyff – who, he admits, did a pretty good job of making him look silly in a game against the Washington Diplomats in 1981.
“He takes off like a frigging jet to one corner flag, and I'm playing a left back, so I'm chasing him and our center-backs are chasing,” he says, “and he does the Cruyff move, where he cuts it behind his own leg. He comes to a complete stop by doing that. And it takes us all three strides to stop because of the pace he was going, and he goes directly for the other corner flag. I think he just did it for fun.”
His San Diego side won on penalties, he is quick to point out.
Getty'It was almost lonely being one of the only soccer hotbeds'
Still, those are the experiences that have come to define soccer culture in the city. Yes, that game was played for San Diego in D.C in July 1981. But the game that his father played in took place against England in Brazil 31 years before.
There is a thread between the two, and generations that spread even further back into the city’s lineage. They continue today. St. Louis wanted an MLS side for some time. The city has been responsible for 76 USMNT players over the years – roughly 10 percent of all footballers to sport the U.S. crest. When the MLS club opened play in 2023, they pushed the idea of being the soccer capital of the United States.
It was, in fact, central to their branding.
“They’ve been very good at respecting the tradition of soccer,” Lange said. Yes, to be clear, some dispute it. Kansas City, in particular, are staunch in their claim to that title.
But the numbers might not lie in this case. And on June 25, St. Louis City SC recognized it, honoring the surviving family members of that team in a pre-match ceremony. It was an appropriate homage to a collective that had such a massive impact on United States soccer – but came from such a concentrated area.
“Soccer has become a really big deal in a lot of other big American cities,” Ty Keough said. “For us, that's fantastic. It was almost lonely being one of the only soccer hotbeds in the United States back in the day, in terms of media attention and so forth. We're glad to see that the sport has grown.”