At the risk of annoying my editor, I’m going to bury the lede a little and start with a footnote of sorts: Julian Sturgis is the first American to win the FA Cup, but as much as I tip my hat to the 1873 Wanderers FC forward, I also feel OK prefacing this story with a few facts and odds and ends that put Millwall’s 1997 Women’s FA Cup win—and therefore the heart of this story—into context.
The 1873 FA Cup was just the second iteration of the world’s oldest football tournament, and Sturgis’ Rovers, having won the first in 1872, were advanced automatically to the next year’s final, only having to win one match to lift the Cup, which they did on March 29, 1873, beating Oxford University 2-0, with Boston-born Sturgis featuring up front in the final, alongside seven of his closest teammates in the popular-at-the-time 1-1-8 formation. So, yes, Sturgis is the first American to win the FA Cup, as no other Yank lifted it between 1874 and 1996.
Then came the 1996-97 Millwall Lionesses…
Now I can back up and get to a proper start to frame this appreciation post for two pioneers, connected through soccer, through Portland, through Us.
In honoring Clive Charles, who passed away 22 years ago today, I want to revisit the story Tracy Nelson told me when I interviewed her for a three-part essay about Charles (linked at the end of this piece). In that interview, Nelson told me of the road she had to take to find professional soccer, something I’ll argue her players at the Portland Thorns Academy can now see as a pathway, thanks in large part to her pioneering and that of her contemporaries.
From Nelson’s interview came this nugget of the road she had to forge and the help she had from her college coach—and what it meant to play in his old stomping grounds:
Now, Tracy Nelson is the Director of Coaching for Portland Thorns Academy. Then, under her maiden name Osborn, she was ending her playing career at the University of Portland, and not wanting to stop playing. So Nelson did what one did in the mid ’90s: she faxed and she wrote letters. “I contacted the US Soccer Federation,” she said “and I asked them to fax me over the addresses of the federations in England, Australia, The Netherlands, and I think Sweden.” Armed with those addresses and a letter of recommendation from Clive, Nelson wrote them all, looking for an opportunity to keep playing, the irony now being, in large part because of Clive’s contributions to the game, if she were going through this process today she wouldn’t have to leave the country, let alone Portland.
After a season in Sweden, she found herself playing in England for Millwall. On May 4, 1997, Nelson became the first American woman to win the FA Cup. (And she’s only the second American ever, after Julian Sturgis lifted the Cup over a hundred years prior with his 1873 Wanderers teammates.) But that’s not the best part. “The FA Cup final was played at Upton Park,” Nelson said. “I knew walking in there that, oh my god, this is where Clive played.” The Lionesses’ 1-0 win over Wembley is the one time I’m OK saying Millwall took full points at West Ham. “It was super emotional, walking in there,” Nelson said of playing at the Boleyn Ground.
“But it was the best thing ever.”
A couple of years later, well after this essay was published and even after I interviewed Tracy for Podcast Episode 37: Tracy Nelson, I received a text from her, with the letter of recommendation Clive Charles wrote for her as she started the journey that led to an FA Cup lift attached.
But the most enduring legacy of all of this might just be the players Nelson has helped and currently helps in her role at the Thorns Academy, players who continue to be part of the legacy we often trace back through Clive Charles.
More from Green Is the Color about Clive and Tracy:
Clive Charles:
“Charlo the True (or, The Three Provides)”