The Storied History of Soccer at the RFK Fields, Part 1
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, formerly known as the District of Columbia Stadium sits still, eerily looming over C Street and Independence Avenue. The fans are gone, the paint is cracked, and the end is near. With demolition plans set to commence in 2022, it feels fitting that DC Way Academy pays tribute to the historic stadium that has symbolically cast its gaze over our academy practices and games for the last 2 years.
The stadium hosted its inaugural event in 1961, a football game between the Washington Football Team and the New York Giants. The stadium would have to wait 6 more years until a soccer ball would be in motion on its turf.
Fast forward to the spring of 1967, the ill-fated United Soccer Association was born. European and South American teams were brought into the United States after their domestic seasons and renamed for a short summer season. The league was rife with controversy, but it brought Washington its first professional soccer team, the Washington Whips, whose nomenclature came from a radio poll. The Whips were represented by the Scottish football team Aberdeen FC, a team that had enjoyed major successes in the Scottish Football League.
On May 26th, 1967 the Washington Whips took on the Cleveland Stokers (represented by English club Stoke City) at RFK Stadium. In front of a crowd of 9,403, they, unfortunately, fell short, suffering a 2-1 defeat to the Stokers. This game marked the beginning efforts of the mass marketization of soccer in DC, and America. The Whips went on to finish the (short) regular season 5-2-5, which earned them a ticket to the United Soccer Association Championship against the Los Angeles Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers). The game was a thriller, which again saw the Whips come out empty-handed. They lost 6-5 after two overtime periods.
After the final, the United Soccer Association merged with the North American Soccer League in hopes of continuing the popularization of soccer. Luckily the Whips survived the merger but were forced to put together their team. RFK Stadium continued to be their home, but eventually was a major reason for their dissolution after the 1968 season. High rent prices for the stadium saw the team scrapped.
Fortunately, this was not the end of soccer at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium.