April 22 (1956)

Granite City’s Ruben Mendoza (pictured) makes headlines as Kutis defeats the Chicago Eagles, 3-1, in Chicago in the first game of the Western Final of U.S. Amateur Cup. With Kutis ahead, 1-0, on a goal by Oscar Corona, Mendoza scores in the first minute of the second half, then adds an insurance goal in the 86th minute. Mendoza then gets into a scrap with Chicago’s Ed Tybor in the 89th minute that stops play for 8 minutes. “Other players who rushed in to either separate the combatants or to contribute a few blows brought on a wild swinging and kicking melee,” U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame journalist Dent McSkimming will write in the next day’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Fans also enter the free-for-all. Mendoza and Tybor are ejected and the game is finished without further incident. The rumble in Chicago is one of several notorious adventures for Kutis in the Windy City during cup playoff matches. “There was one occasion when someone poured sugar in the gas tanks of cars with Missouri license plates parked outside the stadium (in Chicago),” notes a passage in the second edition of ‘Soccer Made in St. Louis: A History of the Game in America’s First Soccer Capital,’ by Dave Lange. “And there was the time when a hostile crowd threatened to jump the team while it left the field after a match. (Kutis defender and future U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer Harry) Keough circled the players for all-around defense as they moved off the pitch. ‘This guy comes at (Kutis goalkeeper) Bob Burkard, he hits the guy and he falls back into the crowd, but they push him back like you would see in a movie and Bob hits him again,’ (Kutis defender Val) Pelizzaro said.” Kutis, which had won the Amateur Cup as the St. Louis Raiders in 1952, will go on to take the 1956 Cup — the first of six consecutive U.S. Amateur Cups for Kutis, perhaps the best soccer team in the United States in the 1950s. Kutis also will win the 1957 U.S. Open Cup and will become the last team in U.S. history to win the Amateur and Open Cups in the same season.