Unsold in U.S.A.

"The boys haven't even broken a sweat yet," said a wispy reporter for the Glasgow Daily Record. On the floodlit field before him in St. Louis one night last week, commencing a U.S. tour, were $1,000,000 worth of Scottish football (soccer) players, champions of Britain and mythical champions of the world.

When the public-address system blurted out, "Foul on Holstein," the Scottish reporter winced. To mispronounce the name of Willie Houliston (rhymes with fool us none), national hero and ace center-forward for Scotland, was as bad as manhandling the name of Joe DiMaggio. At halftime, the Scots had dribbled and passed rings around St. Louis' All-Stars and led, 3-0, but their hearts weren't really in it. The familiar air of tension and desperation, compounded with an occasional "Hampden roar" (a sustained Scottish cheer which becomes so engulfing that mikes have to be turned down until it ceases), were missing. Final score: Scotland 6, St. Louis 0.

Out of Danger. No one has ever given a good reason why soccer, a game which stirs a large part of the world to hysteria, causes little but polite yawns in most of the U.S. The ardor with which U.S. fans pursue baseball is pallid compared with the interest of soccer fans in the 50-odd nations in which it is a national game. In Buenos Aires, referees are sometimes hustled out under police escort lest they be torn limb from limb by the spectators. From Moscow to Melbourne, the action and drama of the game thrill crowds who consider American football slightly less exciting than watching grass grow.

Soccer is a vital part of the British way of life. Each Thursday in season, ten million Britons get a coupon listing the week's games. With sport pages of the papers spread before him and the family kibitzing, the fan makes his selections and his bet (from one penny up) in the weekly "pool." Led by the big three--Little-wood's, Vernon's and Copes's--the pools take in a staggering $250 million a year and rank as Britain's seventh industry.

With prospective fortunes to liven interest (a gas-company worker once took a flutter for 10-c- and won $295,180), crowds at the games dwarf the crowds that turn out for U.S. sport events. When Scotland played (and beat) England two months ago, a throng of 150,000 crammed London's Wembley Stadium to see it done.

Out of Mischief. After a game, fans queue up at locker-room doors just to glimpse or touch the hero who kicked a goal. But where U.S. big-league baseballers make a minimum of $5,000 a year (and on up to $90,000), soccer stars who bring as high as $95,000 when sold on the open market get a top salary of about $56 a week, plus $8 bonuses for every game won. The British encourage their stars to have an off-season job. "It keeps a man out of mischief," said Robert Williamson, a Scottish football official. "It doesn't do, after all, to have a national idol hanging around pubs . . ."

Ater playing in St. Louis before 9,662 people, the Scottish booters moved on to New York for the second of seven scheduled stops. Chief purpose of the tour: to try once again to whip up enthusiasm for soccer in the U.S., where the game's most rabid admirers* are in such places as St. Louis, Kearny, N.J. and Fall River, Mass. One reason why soccer may never take the U.S. by storm: the peak of the season comes during the winter months when fans prefer to be indoors and more comfortable watching basketball.

*Many of whom, especially among first-and second-generation citizens, follow the results of European soccer as avidly as Europeans, bet their dimes and dollars in U.S. pools on the same matches.

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