"The Brooklyn Wanderers" soccer team, in their original iteration. Flavors, players, owners, managers changed, but the name remained the same for half a century of New York soccer history.

The 1926 game with "Hakoah" took place at Ebbets Field, seen above, despite Hawthorne Field, in nearby Crown Heights being the home field of the hottest local soccer stars.

"Hakoah," no stranger to playing in the States, had previously exhibited their phenomenal shape way uptown and across the river from these Brooklyn fields, at the famed Polo Grounds seen in the photo above.

That time in May of 1926, when soccer made the front page of the Forward, readers were reminded that "tens of thousands of people were headed to the game" and was accessible by train, nearby Prospect park's Station seen in the image above. "The game starts promptly at 4 pm" they warned. "Should you happen to be even 5 minutes late" the Forward forewarned now, "you'll lose those 5 minutes of watching their splendid game."

Almost a decade later, in 1934, the Bronx's New York Coliseum, built over this amusement park shown above, hosted a game in support of German Jewish refugees an item that was highlighted deeper inside the paper on an average hump day Wednesday. "This Wednesday afternoon's soccer game is the most interesting of the season" the paper promised. If you read further on, it wouldn't seem to be a complete exaggeration either. No less than "Hakoah"'s great forward Erno Schwartz was promoting the game. Schwarz, at that point himself a Hungarian Jewish refugee immigrant, former manager of "Hakoah" and the first Jew to coach the US Men's Soccer team, was here, offering his talents to help his fellow refugees from fascist Europe. The game was between the impressively named New York Americans and an equally delicious team name: Brookhattan. Say what? Tickets, the Forward assured readers, were on a scale ranging between 40-75 cents, and could be bought at the Forward's offices. "All proceeds will go towards constructive help" for the refugees.

Nat Agar could be said to have been behind many of the early New York City soccer teams, and assisted soccer greats like Schwartz to immigrate, before the European fascist doors slammed shut, and likely, as they were Jewish, killed them. Agar himself was a soccer player with the little known Coney Island Critchleys team. Today soccer is back in Coney Island with the New York Cosmos playing in MCU park on Surf Avenue, conveniently located by the frozen custard stand seen above. Agar's own soccer ownership 'wanderings' were varied and somewhat brutal. A British immigrant at the turn of the century, having played there, he started the team in Coney Island, played before 30,000 at the Coliseum, and by 1921 had organized the Brooklyn Wanderers. After the "Hakoah" team showed up in town in 1926, he made sure to offer their star players positions on both teams he came to manage and own, all while holding down jobs as an accountant, forming the US Football , Association, dropping it when he became an official of the American Soccer League then going on to coach the American national team in 3 international soccer games between the US and Canada. While refereeing for the New York Amateur Association League in 1910, he was assaulted. Like their indefatigable boss, the "Wanderers" were reinvented with either new players, a new manager, owners or all three so many times until they were finally in 1963-64's season, disbanded as a club. Their name, fashionable in early UK soccer history also signifies itinerants lacking a home. The "Brooklyn Wanderers" made a home for refugee players, for local Jewish players unwelcome in other teams and for one of the first Jewish soccer team players who even went on to become management.