Philadelphia Merchant Ship F.C. was a short-lived U.S.

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

team of the early twentieth century. It spent two seasons in the

National Association Football League The National Association Football League (also spelled ''National Association Foot Ball League'') (NAFBL) was a semi-professional U.S. soccer league which operated between 1895 and 1898. The league was reconstituted in 1906 and continued to oper ...

and went to the semifinals of the 1919

American Cup The American Cup (also known as the American Football Association Cup and the American Federation Cup) was the first major U.S. soccer competition open to teams beyond a single league. It was first held in 1885. In the 1910s, it gradually dec ...

History

Philadelphia Merchant Ship was the company team for the

W. Averell Harriman William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891July 26, 1986), better known as Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman, and diplomat. The son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman, he served as Secretary of Commerce un ...

’s Shipbuilding Company located on the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...

near

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. The team exploded onto the national scene in 1918. That year it entered the

, finishing tied for second with Paterson F.C., but defeated them in a run off game to take sole possession of second place. That summer, the company entered two teams, Merchant Ship “A” and Merchant Ship “B” in the

National Challenge Cup The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, commonly known as the U.S. Open Cup (USOC), is a knockout cup competition in men's soccer in the United States of America. It is the oldest ongoing national soccer competition in that country. The 2023 U.S. O ...

. Both were eliminated in the second round. However, Merchant Ship “A” went to the semifinals of the

before falling to Paterson F.C. and Merchant Ship “B” won the Allied Amateur Cup. The team experienced an immediate drop off in performance the next season, finishing ninth in the NAFBL standings. The team withdrew from the league at the end of the season and disbanded.

Year-by-year

Honors

League Championship :* Runner Up (1): 1919

External links

National Association Football League standings

References

{{Reflist Defunct soccer clubs in Pennsylvania National Association Football League teams Mer 1920 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Association football clubs disestablished in 1920 Works soccer clubs in the United States