Fire

John Bankston

2001 SW 31st Avenue Hallandale, FL 33009 2001 SW 31st Avenue www.mitchellane.com Hallandale, FL 33009 www.mitchellane.com Copyright © 2019 by Mitchell Lane Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Printing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Designer: Ed Morgan Editor: Sharon F. Doorasamy

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bankston, John, 1974- author Title: Chicago Fire / by John Bankston. Description: Hallandale, FL : Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2019. | Series: | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018003124| ISBN 9781680202441 (library bound) | ISBN 9781680202458 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Chicago Fire (Soccer team)—History—Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC GV943.6.C45 B36 2018 | DDC 796.334/6477311—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003124

PHOTO CREDITS: Design Elements, freepik.com, Cover Photo: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images, p. 5 © Ralph Morris CC-BY-SA-2.0, p. 6 public domain, p. 7 Shaun Botterill/ALLSPORT Getty Images, p. 8 Jonathan Daniel/ALLSPORT Getty Images, p. 11 Christopher Ruppel/Getty Images, p. 13 Doug Pensinger/Getty Images, p. 14 Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images, p. 17 freepik.com, p. 18 Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images, p. 21 Jonathan Daniel/MLS via Getty Images, p. 22 Stephen Dunn/Getty Images, p. 25 freepik.com, p. 27 Dylan Buell/Getty Images Contents Chapter One No More Sting ...... 4

Chapter Two On Fire!...... 10

Chapter Three Playing like a Champion of Fire ...... 16

Chapter Four Best of the Fire ...... 20

Chapter Five Communicating With Fire...... 24

What You Should Know...... 28 Quick Stats...... 28 Timeline...... 29 Glossary...... 30 Further Reading...... 31 On the Internet...... 31 Index...... 32 About the Author...... 32

Words in bold throughout can be found in the Glossary. No More CHAPT Sting ER ONE

eople try to avoid fire,except when the fire is the Chicago PFire soccer team. For more than 100 years, people have played soccer in Chicago. In the 1880s, new arrivals from England played the game. They formed leagues. Top companies such as the railroad carmaker Pullman Car Company sponsored them. In 1893, at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, visitors to the fair were introduced to soccer in an event called a “world championship.” Running from May to October, it welcomed millions of people. Then in the early 1900s, immigrants from Poland and other European countries brought their love of the sport to the city. Many played the game in their working-class neighborhoods. The sport proved so popular among ethnic immigrant groups that many formed leagues. One such group was the National Soccer League of Chicago. This semiprofessional league formed in 1920 after two leagues merged. It still exists today. C HAPTER ONE From 1974 to 1988, Chicago had a professional soccer team called the Sting. The played in the North American Soccer League (NASL). In 1981 and 1984, the team won the . “We were the kings in town in 1981,” Sting forward said. “It was amazing, because everywhere you went, people would grab you and ask you for autographs and tell you how great the team was and wishing us luck. The whole year was like that. It was unbelievable.” Chapter One

Despite the championships, not enough people came to the games. The Sting went broke. Their last game was in 1988. The NASL also disappeared. It operated from 1968 to 1984. But Major League Soccer (MLS) picked up where it left off. In 1997 Chicago got its own Major League Soccer team, the Chicago Fire. The team is named after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The fire burned more than 2,000 acres of the city. Three hundred people died. More than 100,000 lost their homes.

Destroyed buildings in the aftermath of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire

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