Editor’s note: This is the second part in the Black Diamond Miner Leagues series.

Part I was “Smokers, saloons and the mighty Sullivan”

Though baseball was the most prominent sport in Black Diamond, soccer held a special mark among the Welsh and European immigrants. They brought with them a strong passion for the game they called “football.” Soon, their passion was passed onto other immigrants and Americans in town.

Their first team in 1911 were state champions, with Anglo-Welsh names like “Evans,” “Overton,” “Proctor” and “Hughes” dotting the roster.

The Pacific Coast Coal Company sponsored the soccer team and provided them with their equipment — socks, shin guards, soccer balls and uniforms — albeit sometimes a private business in town like E and E Meats would cover the costs of the uniforms and advertise their business on them.

Jack Thompson, 70, had the privilege of playing for the last soccer team in Black Diamond in 1957, when he was 15. By then, the team had shrunk down to a small size. There were only 11 players and four substitutes. Like a desperate nation during a war, it also recruited men of any age to play. Playing alongside Thompson were 50-year-old men.

But, anyone who thought they were past their prime was dead wrong, according to Thompson. As he put it, the older men could be quite intimidating to their opponents.

“They’d foam at the mouth,” he said. They would “eat an orange and then go back and play.”

Games were held at a field in the area where state Route 18 and Gloria’s Restaurant and Lounge are located. While the game has more or less remained the same one significant difference was the quality of the soccer balls.

Made of thick leather, the balls were laced together, which was supposed to hold the air in. The laces were a painful welcome for players who used their heads to block or pass, as it left a deep red mark on their foreheads. After a full night of kicking and passing, the ball would slowly lose its round shape and resembled a football, which caused it to wobble or curve over the course of a game.

Despite this, it was still better than what the children had to contend with when they played.

Eddie “Catfish” Banchero recalled in the 1988 book “Black Diamond: Mining the Memories,” they were forced to be resourceful.

“We would kick a can,” he said. “Heck, we didn’t have any balls.”

To make their own cleats, they would put hobnails into shoes to give them traction.

“Boy, my dad used to put more bloody hobnails on my shoes that I could hardly lift them,” he stated. “But we still kicked it.”

The soccer team was able to achieve numerous successes throughout the years, such as the state championship title in 1951-52, due to its cohesion and the capabilities of their star players. Some, like Peter Dearden of Roslyn, were recruited from other towns and cities to play at Black Diamond.

Others, like Thomspon’s father, Charles, were the cream of the crop. “Chick,” as he was referred to, performed so well on the field that he avoided working down in the coal mine. Dropping out of high school junior year, he worked cleaning the air shafts, because of his small stature. He eventually finished his senior year.

The team also relied on star players like Steve Androsko and goalies such as Bill Lemke and Frank Zumek to protect them from a strong offensive. A player in the 1920s, Lemke was a terror to all forwards who attempted to score against him. If an opposing player got too close to Lemke when he kicked the ball, Lemke “would smack the ball so that his elbow or his fist would hit his opponent and knock him out,” according to Thomspon.

The ties between the players developed naturally from their close relationships. Since big families were a common staple of Black Diamond, it was inevitable that many teams would be composed of multiple members of a single family. Frank Zumek, along with his brothers Tom and Louis were often seen on the field together and played for the 1941 championship team.

The term “home-team” advantage gained a whole new meaning when other soccer teams came to play Black Diamond. According to Thompson, Black Diamond had a reputation for fighting after games, particularly if they lost.

“They liked to lose,” Thompson said of the other teams, “so they wouldn’t get beat up afterwards.”

For those who enjoyed a good drink, there was another reason, too.

After games were concluded, it was customary for the players to go down into the wine cellar, mostly located in the Italian section. There, they would drink to their heart’s content, and then some.

This, and the miners’ propensity for feuds after a loss, contributed to a fatalistic attitude for away teams.

“If you came to Black Diamond, you were better off losing,” Thompson said, “cause you’d be in a wine cellar drinking free wine instead of winning and not be able to drink because your jaw hurt like hell.”

One of the few times there was an exception to this rule was not for fellow Americans, ironically, but for war enemies.

During World War II, Fort Lawton in Seattle was used as a POW camp for German and Italian prisoners. One weekend in 1943, a soccer team composed of Italian POWs arrived in Black Diamond to play against their team.

Though their nations were fighting each other in Europe there was no animosity between the two groups. The prisoners at Fort Lawson had been selected due to their conscription into the Italian military and their indifference or dislike of Benito Mussolini. Rather than embittered by their capture they were actually happy to be out of the conflict.

“They were nice young men,” Thompson said.

When they rolled into town on a bus there was a notable absence of security to prevent escape. Given very few restrictions, the POWs were allowed to stay in the homes of the Italian families, who greeted them with open arms.

“They were treated like long, lost relatives,” Thompson said.

The teams played on Sunday though it isn’t known who won.

Only two years prior, Black Diamond had played against another foreign team in 1941, when the British battleship HMS Warspite was in port at Bremerton. A group of sailors from Warspite formed a soccer team to play against various Washington teams. While their countries were allies in the war, the mood was anything but easy-going when the British sailors arrived in Black Diamond. Overconfident, they believed their American opponents were inept at a primarily European sport.

“They were shocked,” Thompson said, when they were soundly beaten.

The game that took the prize for irony, however, occurred as a result of the recruiting system that existed between the towns. Jack Evans, who helped found the first Black Diamond soccer team, was replaced one year by another person. It was a decision they would come to regret.

Carbonado, a coal mining town in Pierce County, needed more players for their team, so they recruited Evans to play for them. As fate would have it, the end of the season concluded with a championship game between Black Diamond and Carbonado.

Naturally, the Black Diamond players were not thrilled with one of their own on the rival team.

Victor Evans, Jack Evans’ son, recounted the rest of the story in “Black Diamond: Mining the Memories.”

“’How can you play against your home team?’” he recalled them asking his father.

“They didn’t want me,” Jack Evans was said to have replied. “’So I’m playing for this team.’”

According to Victor Evans, his father scored the winning goal.

Immigrants brought serious soccer chops to town | Black Diamond Miner Leagues Part II