Oct. 25, 1919 – J&P Coats 1:2 Fore River, Southern New England League match at Coats Field, Pawtucket (Att.: 1,500). ‘Referee Flees from Angry Crowd’

According to The Boston Globe: “Fearing the angry crowd, referee Bishop of Fall River called the game about four minutes before time was up.”

But that was not the end of the incident.

“The crowd surged on the field in pursuit of Bishop, who ran for the clubhouse immediately after blowing the final whistle and was overtaken by some spectators, who assaulted him, but he managed to break away.

“When Bishop reached the clubhouse he found the door locked, with only one avenue of escape, an open window. He made for it, just jumping through in the clubhouse in time to avoid serious injury at the hands of the mob, bent on vengeance.”

An offside call against J&P Coats started the activity. “The play did not seem off-side, as there were two Fore River backs in front of (Holgate) when he received the pass from Haigh in midfield.”

Bishop ruled the match “unfinished” and league officials were to schedule a playing of the final four minutes.

J&P Coats’ Downie’s 21^st-minute “fierce drive” opened the scoring. Page equalized early in the second half and Jack Kershaw’s 30-yarder broke the deadlock. Fore River went on to take a 3-1 win over J&P Coats in the third round of the 1919-20 National Challenge Cup (U.S. Open Cup) on the way to reaching the finals, Kershaw scoring in a 2-1 loss to the Ben Millers in the final in St. Louis. Kershaw later performed for J&P Coats, the Fall River Marksmen and Shawsheen Indians in the ASL, then coached Harvard’s soccer team. Page, a left inside forward, played for several seasons with Fore River and had commemorated a goal against the Fall River Rovers with a handspring in 1918, according to the Globe.

TODAY IN NEW ENGLAND SOCCER HISTORY