Soccer was still in its infancy in the United States when a record crowd of 46,000 gathered for a match at the Polo Grounds on May 1, 1926. It took 51 years for this record to be broken. That was accomplished in 1977 when the New York Cosmos led by Pele when 77,961 came out to the Meadowlands to see the Cosmos defeat Fort Lauderdale Strikers 8-3.
The match at the Polo Grounds in 1926 featured the Hakoah All-Stars, an all-Jewish team from the Austrian first division. The opponent for this exhibition match was the New York Stars (this included players from New York teams playing in the American Soccer League.)
The match had particular significance in New York as many Jewish immigrants had settled in the New York area. The opportunity to see a team made up of professional Jewish athletes helped draw the large crowd that day in upper Manhattan.
The match proved so popular that other Jewish teams would visit the area for exhibition matches. Some of those included:
1927 Hakoah played the New York Giants in front of 40,000 at the Polo Grounds. This match was the first professional soccer match to be played at night under the lights in the US.
1947 Hapoel from Tel Aviv played a New York all-star team in front of 43,177 at Yankee Stadium.
1956, the Israeli Olympic team played an American Soccer League all-star team in front of 42,455 at Yankee Stadium.
The original Hakoah club was founded in 1901 and won its first Austrian championship in 1925.
The initial visit of Hakoah proved so successful that eight of the club’s best players remained in the states rather than go back to Europe which was dealing with heightened anti-Semitism. The fact that those that stayed behind broke their Austrian contracts resulted in an Austrian protest to FIFA.
Some of the former Hakoah players who stayed in America formed a team known as New York Hakoah. They initially played in the Eastern Soccer League and won the US Open Cup in 1929.
In 1930 they merged with Brooklyn Hakoah of the American Soccer League to become the Hakoah All-Stars.
The second New York Hakoah was reborn for the 1956–57 season when a revived Brooklyn Hakoah merged with the New York Americans to become the New York Hakoah-Americans. They then shortened that to New York Hakoah for the 1962–63 season. They were American Soccer League champions three times in a row between 1957 and 1959.
A third version of New York Hakoah was established in nearby Bergen County, New Jersey in 2009. Originally known as Club Hakoah Bergen County the club was soon rebranded to continue the legacy of the original New York Hakoah.
The club was founded by Ron Glickman who was inspired by a visit to the Diaspora Museum in Israel when he was 17 and by the fact that his great-grandfather had seen the original Hakoah play in the Polo Grounds.
The rebuilt Hakoah club competes in the North Jersey Soccer League. Most of the players are Jewish but it also has a multinational flavor. According to Glickman languages spoken by members of the team include Russian, Arabic, Norwegian, Spanish, French, Swedish, and, of course, Hebrew and English.