Unless you’re a US Soccer connoisseur, a historian of the beautiful game or perhaps from the city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, you’ve probably never heard of Archie Stark and his claim to fame. Stark holds a goal-scoring record that the superstar strikers of the modern era have gotten nowhere close to – the record for the most goals in a single season.
Lionel Messi scored 73 goals for Barcelona in 2011-12. Cristiano Ronaldo scored 61 for Real Madrid in 2014-15. Robert Lewandowski scored 55 for Bayern Munich in 2019-20, while the current top man, Erling Haaland scored 52 for Manchester City in 2022-23. And in case you’re wondering, Kylian Mbappe’s best effort was 44 for PSG in 2023-24.
Born in Glasgow in 1897, he arrived in the USA as a teenager and settled in Kearny, New Jersey, where he began his career playing for the local Scottish-American club. He headed back to Europe to serve in the US Army during World War I and upon his return, became a naturalized American citizen in December 1919.
Five years later, when he signed for Bethlehem Steel in the American Soccer League, the country’s first professional league, he broke a record that still stands. In his first game for the team, Stark scored four times and continued in the same vein throughout the season, finding the back of the net 67 times in 44 games. Put that into perspective, his record is for league goals, unlike Messi and Ronaldo, whose total goals are over the entire season, including Cup and European competitions. Messi’s 73 goals came in 60 games, while Ronaldo’s were over 54 games. That season Messi scored just 50 La Liga goals and in other competitions, 14 in the Champions League, 3 Copa del Rey, 3 Spanish Super Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup and 2 in the Club World Cup.
The following year, Stark added another major achievement by scoring a hat-trick as Bethlehem Steel won the National Challenge Cup, the forerunner of today’s U.S. Open Cup.
Stark collected two caps for the USMNT, both coming against Canada. He was held scoreless in the first but in the second he punished the Canadian keeper, forcing him to pull the ball out of the back of his net on four occasions. The USA won 6-1 at Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers in November 1925.
In 1930, he was invited to represent the USA in the first ever FIFA World Cup in Uruguay, still considered the league’s top center-forward, but he refused for personal reasons. Stark was trying to start an automotive business back home in Kearny, after his Bethlehem team folded and felt that staying home was more important for his future.
Stark never got his World Cup moment, but his place in American soccer history was already secured. More than a century later, his 67 goals in 44 league games during the 1924–25 season remain a remarkable record and one that has outlasted generations of American and international forwards. He is a legend.
(Archie Stark (center, front row) with the U.S. national team before its 6–1 victory over Canada at Ebbets Field in 1925. Stark scored four goals in the historic win.)
