Blue Chippers from the Emerald Isle : A history of Irish footballers and scholarships in the USA in the twentieth century

«In this excellent, readable and important study, Curran reveals a rich vein of migrants who went to ply their trade as soccer players in the USA. This textured study illustrates the human side of the story enlivened by rich interviews of both female and male players. It is a must for students of the diaspora and sports studies. A major contribution».

«This is a fascinating and timely contribution to debates on sport and migration. Curran uses an impressive array of methods from archives to in-depth interviews to tell the story of young Irish athletes who move to the United States to take up scholarship opportunities to further their education and play football».

(Professor Chris Bolsmann, California State University Northridge).

The book explores Irish male and female soccer players’ experiences of US soccer scholarships in the twentieth century. It assesses how valuable these scholarships were in terms of playing, education and post-university careers. This study therefore focuses on how these players were recruited, their playing and educational experiences of the soccer scholarships, and the extent to which their scholarships facilitated their employment in professional football and in work related to their degrees after leaving university. Using oral testimony as well as archival evidence, the book adds new perspectives on the history of sports migration, to studies of the Irish diaspora, to research on the history of education and to women’s history. It also contributes to the fields of sports history, migration and education. In doing so, it examines an aspect of the history of Irish-American relations which has not previously been assessed.