Graham Guides Scanning Project

The Society for American Soccer History (SASH) is pleased to announce its first fundraising campaign since securing nonprofit status in 2022.

SASH is launching a campaign to raise $1,600 to digitally scan the complete run of what are colloquially referred to as the Bill Graham Guides. The resulting scans of the Guides will be made available for free PDF download on the SASH website.

The Graham Guides were published between 1948 and 1956 by soccer journalist Bill Graham, first as the US Annual Soccer Guide and Record and then as the North American Soccer Guide. No editions were published in 1957, 1958, and 1959. Graham returned as editor in 1960 with the publication of the US Soccer Football Guide, which in later years was called the Soccer Annual, USSFA Soccer Annual, and the USSFA Yearbook. All told, 22 editions consisting of some 3,400 pages were published between 1948 and 1973.

As a compilation of soccer activity across the United States, the Graham Guides followed in the footsteps of Spalding's Official Association "Soccer" Foot Ball Guide, which was published annually between 1905 and 1924. As collections of results from local, regional, national, and international competitions; official communications; reports on international tours; and commentary from leading figures on the issues of the day, the Spalding Guides and Graham Guides had no equals. They also often contain the only known images of historic matches, players, teams, organizers, and administrators. Both are essential resources for understanding the history of soccer in the US.

You can be a part of preserving and sharing soccer history by contributing to SASH’s effort to digitize the Graham Guides. Please consider making a gift today.

A recent poll of SASH membership demonstrated strong interest in the time period covered by the Graham Guides, the 1940s through the early 1970s. By making the Graham Guides freely available, SASH hopes to spark a boom in research into this important era of US soccer history.

The Graham Guides campaign is SASH’s second fundraiser. After identifying footage in the archives of the Swedish Film Institute of the first ever US Men’s National Team game in 1916, and of Bethlehem Steel FC playing in Sweden in 1919, SASH completed a successful fundraising campaign in September 2020 to secure the rights to the historic footage, which can now be viewed on the SASH YouTube channel.

Founded in 1993 by American soccer historian Sam T. N. Foulds, SASH works to promote, facilitate, and disseminate research into the rich history of soccer in the United States.

SASH is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.