Search for First Game Played in Maine and Bar Harbor is Ahead

Sitting at my son’s kitchen table in Maryland tending my six grandkids (sort of) and looking randomly at newspapers.com in the year 1906, and this picture in the Bangor Daily News popped up labelled:

“SOCCER” FOOTBALL IN BAR HARBOR 19 YEARS AGO

The date of issue was November 30, 1906!! Nineteen years from 1906 would date this surprising event in 1887. A lengthy caption under the picture announced the demolition of the Rodick House marked the doing away with “one of the most interesting landmarks in the State of Maine.” The caption continues:

“The above photograph from an old negative taken in

1887 shows a game of soccer played on the lawn of the 

old hotel by a team of visiting Englishmen and a team of summer guests.”

The caption goes on to say that the Englishmen played several more games, but did not recount the locations. It also gives a prominent photographer, Ernest Emery of Bar Harbor, credit for taking the picture.

It is also notable that similarly, the 1906 Kennebec Journal announced that Yale University was in the process of organizing a soccer football team (gained varsity recognition by the University in 1907), and listed results of matches in New England and the Merrimack Valley Leagues.

The account above states the game was played on the Lawn of the Rodick House, which was called the largest hotel in Maine with over 400 rooms. The Hotel burned down in the famous 1947 Bar Harbor Fire, and now the Bar Harbor Inn, along with many other buildings, are on the site. Here is how it was pictured in 1885.