The Haverford Fords men's soccer team is a varsity intercollegiate athletic team of Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. The team is a member of the Centennial Conference, which is part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III.
Haverford's first men's soccer team was fielded in 1901. The team plays its home games at Walton Field on the Haverford campus. The Fords are coached by Zach Ward.
By 1900, soccer had become popular among cricket clubs in Philadelphia so they established a league. Founding members were Belmont, Germantown, Kensington, and Frankford. The popularity of the sport also attracted Haverford students, with soccer and cricket becoming the favorite sports. Richard Gummere, who had played to play soccer at England, introduced the game to Haverford College, being played at the end of cricket season. The students formed a team to play to 1902 season. The team debuted with a win to Germantown, in a match of the recently formed "Philadelphia Cricket Clubs League", a soccer competition established by cricket clubs where the sport had increased its popularity among members.
For 1905, Gummere designated himself as captain, while Canadian Wilfred Mustard (who was a Latin professor at the college, apart from having played soccer at the University of Toronto) was appointed as coach of the team.
The Fords have the distinction of winning the first three Intercollegiate Soccer Football Association national championships, the unofficial national championship that served as the predecessor to the NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament from 1905 until 1958. The 1904âÂÂ05 team is considered by some to be the first organized collegiate national championship to be won by a program.
The team would continue their early 20th century success before winning the ISFA titles in 1906, 1907, 1911 and 1918.
In 1924, the program won the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Association Football League season.
The 1945 team was undefeated. Success continued under Jimmy Mills, who was coach from 1949 to 1970. Under coach Dave Felsen, Haverford won the Middle Atlantic Conference Southern Division five times in the period from 1976 to 1982.
The team won three more MAC South titles under Joe Amorim, who was named head coach in 1983.
Haverford won a school-record 17 games in 1992. The team became the first men's soccer program to record 700 all-time wins, in September 2002, when the team defeated Neumann 7âÂÂ0.
Haverford has had 19 men's soccer coaches in their program's history. The most recent head coach was Zach Ward, the men's soccer coach from 2018 until February, 2023.
Note: They were considered national titles before the establishment of the NCAA soccer tournament in 1959
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