Kick off North America’s FIFA World Cup 2026™ celebrations with this virtual symposium tracing football’s rise as a global phenomenon. Starting from the early 20th century, discover the fascinating and often untold history of the world’s favorite sport. Whether you play or spectate – and even if you call it “soccer” – there will be topics for every area of interest.
See the talks from the 2026 Digital Summit
Speakers
Dr. Alex Alexandrou
Project Manager, Army Football Association History Heritage Project
Dr. Alex Alexandrou is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Football and War Network based at the University of Wolverhampton. He serves as Project Manager of the Army Football Association’s History Heritage Project, run in conjunction with the National Army Museum.
A published author and editor, including for the Football and War Network’s blog series, he has co-edited and contributed to “A Football Odyssey: For the Fans by the Fans.” He has presented research and supported events for the Association of Research in Post-Compulsory Education, National Army Museum, Peace in Europe, Scoula Democratica, Valence House Museum, the Tower of London and the Royal Armouries Museum.
Alexandrou has served as Chair of Dunstable Town FC, Director of Solihull Moors FC, Chair of Solihull Moors Women FC and currently presides as Chair of Elmswell FC. His work has supported additional county football associations and clubs, including Charlton Athletic, Dulwich Hamlet, Essex Football Association, Exeter City, Leyton Orient, Maidenhead United, Oxford United, Southampton, Wealdstone, and the Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Adem Biçer
President, Chamber of the Tour Guides in Çanakkale
Adem Biçer is a nationally certified tour guide in Çanakkale, Türkiye. Guiding since 2006, he specializes in the history and battlefields of Gallipoli, Troy and Assos. Biçer currently serves as the President of the Chamber of the Tour Guides in Çanakkale, a position he has held since 2013. In 2019, he co-led the National WWI Museum and Memorial’s battlefield tour to Gallipoli in partnership with Battle Honours.
Steve Bolton
Independent Historian
Football historian Steve Bolton is a vocal and respected advocate for the cultural significance of early women’s football, actively challenging many of the popular narratives surrounding this history and basing his work upon meticulous research. Published in various media and exhibitions, Bolton’s work can also be accessed on his YouTube channel, “Steve Bolton Historian.”
The grandson of international football legend Lizzy Ashcroft, one of the pioneering women footballers of the 1920s and 1930s, Bolton has helped re-establish the “lost years” of women's football as a vital part of British sporting heritage. With much of his research focusing specifically on the period between the World War I “golden era” of over 1,000 games and the 1971 lifting of the English Football Association’s 1921 ban, Bolton is the primary architect in rescuing and promoting the story of the Sterling Ladies FC, the “Dagenham Invincibles.”
James Brown
Vice President, Society for American Soccer History (SASH)
United States Soccer historian James Brown is Vice President of the Society for American Soccer History (S.A.S.H). An expert in early U.S. and global soccer history, including the 1930 FIFA World Cup, his commitment to researching, documenting and storytelling soccer’s history spans 15 years.
Entailed in his book “Mud, Blood, and Studs,” Brown’s own family connections to U.S. soccer goes back nearly a century with his father George Brown and grandfather Jim Brown, playing professional soccer in the 1950s and 1920s, respectively. Both are inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame as the only Father/Son in the Player category.
Currently, Brown is researching and writing two books about Abel La Fleur, the Parisian sculptor of the FIFA World Cup trophy and master medal and plaque engraver in the early 20th century, and a coffee table book about the U.S. Men's National Team's greatest achievement in a FIFA World Cup for the 100th anniversary in 2030.
Dr. Brian Bunk
Senior Lecturer, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dr. Brian D. Bunk is a Senior Lecturer in the History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches courses in world history, modern Europe and the history of sport.
Bunk’s research is focused on the history of soccer in the United States. His latest book, “From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States” was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2021.
Alexandra Churchill
Co-Founder, The Great War Group
Historian and author Alexandra Churchill is the Co-Founder of The Great War Group, established in 2020. She organizes tours to WWI battlefields and appears regularly on television and in military history documentaries, including on the BBC, Channel 5, National Geographic and History Hit. A Fellow of The Royal Historical Society, Churchill has published her research in a variety of media, including her recent book “Ring of Fire: A New History of the World at War: 1914” and her podcast “History Hack.”
Clive Harris
Co-Owner and Guide, Battle Honours
Clive Harris, the co-owner and guide of Battle Honours, served in the Royal Signals and Hertfordshire Constabulary before starting his career in military history in 1998. He is currently preparing his Ph.D. in association with the National Army Museum.
Harris holds badge number 33 within the Guild of Battlefield Guides. His areas of expertise include The Retreat of 1914, The Gallipoli Campaign, The London Blitz, and the Italian Campaign of 1943/44. He was the 2021 Douglas Haig Fellow, is a member of the British Commission for Military History, and is a proud Freeman of the City. A keen sports fan, he is also the historian for Charlton Athletic Football Club.
During the WWI centennial, Harris was an advisor to the UK Government and has been featured in numerous media over the last 20 years, including the BBC. His published works include “Walking the London Blitz,” “A Wander through Wartime London” and “The Greater Game.”
Dr. Alexander Jackson
Curator, National Football Museum
Dr. Alexander Jackson is a Curator at the National Football Museum in Manchester and has researched and published widely on the history of English football. Jackson was lead curator for the 2014 exhibition, “The Greater Game: Football and the First World War.” Born in Sheffield, he has inherited the family allegiance to Newcastle United.
Dr. Chris Juergens
Senior Curator, National WWI Museum and Memorial
Dr. Chris Juergens was hired at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in 2024. He develops, refines and interprets the collection, plans exhibits, conducts scholarly research and supports public programming. Juergens holds a Ph.D. in History from Florida State University.
Dr. Lucas Maubert
Historian, University of Tarapacá
Dr. Lucas Maubert is a historian and professor at the University of Tarapacá in Chile. He currently serves as a researcher at the University’s Transborder Studies Group and the Historical Migration Research Group, as well as the University of Bueno Aires’ Historical War Studies Group (GEHiGue). Maubert’s scholarship is related to the history of transatlantic and transpacific diplomatic relations and the repercussions of global conflicts in Latin America.
Dr. Kevin Tallec Marston
Senior Research Fellow and Academic Project Manager, Centre International d’Etude du Sport (CIES)
Dr. Kevin Tallec Marston is Senior Research Fellow & Lecturer at CIES and long-time Visiting Lecturer at De Montfort University’s International Centre for Sport History & Culture, where he obtained a Ph.D. in history. He has taught on the FIFA Master course for over twenty years and also lectures on sport history at the University of Neuchatel. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, edited collections, serves on a number of editorial boards, and is the current president of the Society for American Soccer History (SASH). His most recent book – co-authored with Mike Cronin – “Inventing the Boston Game: Football, Soccer and the Origins of a National Myth” (UMass Amherst) was the honorable mention for the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) 2025 Book award.
Dr. Tom McCabe
Founder and Chief Storyteller, Soccertown Media
Dr. Tom McCabe is the Founder and Chief Storyteller of Soccertown Media. Since 2007, he has been an adjunct professor in the History Department at Rutgers University-Newark, where he teaches courses on Newark, the United States, and soccer. Previously, he served as an administrator, teacher and coach at St. Benedict’s for more than 15 years.
McCabe is an award-winning writer and producer; his acclaimed works including the book “Miracle on High Street: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of St. Benedict’s Prep School” and the American soccer documentary “SOCCERTOWN, USA”, which received the Kicking+Screening film festival’s 2019 Audience Award.
Currently, McCabe is working on a book manuscript on the American Football Association, the oldest Football Association outside Britain. Born and bred in the Garden State, he played college soccer at Princeton University, and while he still plays, it now usually takes his body a few days to recover. He tweets @TomMcCabe5.
Dr. Laura Patrick
Project Director, UNTOLD: The Museum Ltd
Dr. Laura Patrick is the Project Director at UNTOLD: The Museum Ltd, dedicated to documenting and telling the all-island history of Irish men and women who have served in the British Army over the last 350 years.
Originally qualified as an archaeologist, Patrick has been working in the heritage sector since 2014. Joining UNTOLD in 2021, she is driven by her passion to make collections and museums accessible for everyone.
Kurt Rausch
Independent Historian
Kurt Rausch is a New Jersey-based public soccer historian and a member of the Society for American Soccer History (SASH). A graduate of Rutgers University (B.S. in Electrical Engineering), his interests include NJ/NY Metropolitan area soccer history, the National Association Football League (NAFL) and the history of soccer in Paterson, NJ and the Jersey shore. He comes from a multi-generational soccer family, with a rich lineage of players tracing back to the 1890s in New Jersey.
Buğra Terzi
Academic Consultant, Çanakkale Wars Institute
Buğra Terzi is a Research Assistant in the Department of History at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University and Academic Consultant at the Çanakkale Wars Institute. His research, published in books and academic journals, focuses on military history, specifically the Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War.
Dr. Marko Vukičević
Research Associate, Croatian Institute of History
Dr. Marko Vukičević has been the Research Associate at the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb since 2021. He studied History at the University of Zagreb and defended his dissertation “Zagreb During World War I” in 2018. His topics of interest include social, legal, economic and everyday history from the periods of modern and contemporary history, with a specific focus on World War I. The author of numerous scientific papers and a monograph, as well as editor of a book, Vukičević has participated in many national and international history and scientific conferences.
Dr. Christopher Warren
Chief Curator and Vice President of Collections, National WWI Museum and Memorial
Dr. Christopher Warren is the Chief Curator and Vice President of Collections at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. Hired in 2022, he presides over the collections and curatorial team, which is responsible for acquisitions of new objects, curating, production, and management of exhibitions, collections digitization, object loans and interpreting and organizing the Museum collection. He regularly publishes in scholarly and lay media, teaches university courses and supports public programs. Warren holds a J.D. in Law from the George Mason University School of Law, and a Ph.D. in History from George Mason University.
Schedule
10 a.m. | Welcome with Lora Vogt
10:05 a.m. | “The Beautiful Game: An Exhibition” with Christopher Warren
10:25 a.m. | “Army Football: The Soldier’s Game” with Alex Alexandrou
10:40 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Galatasaray” with Adem Biçer
10:45 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Fenerbahçe” with Buğra Terzi
10:50 a.m. | “Croatia: Football in WWI” with Marko Vukičević
11:15 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: The Beautiful Game” with Chris Juergens
11:20 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Sandy Turnbull” with Clive Harris
11:25 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Loos Football” with Laura Patrick
11:30 a.m. | “Association Football on the English Homefront” with Alexander Jackson
11:45 a.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Chelsea” with Alexandra Churchill
11:55 a.m. | “Chile: Football in WWI” with Lucas Maubert
12:10 p.m. | “G.R. Manning: Transnational Immigrant, American Colonel and Soccer President” with Kevin Tallec Marston
12:35 p.m. | “From Cooper’s Block to the Western Front: The Erie Athletic Association” with Tom McCabe
12:50 p.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Andy Auld” with James Brown
12:55 p.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Archie Stark” with Tom McCabe
1:00 p.m. | “The Fighting Sons of Immigrants” with Brian Bunk
1:15 p.m. | “From Ballfield to Battlefield: Samuel Bustard” with Kurt Rausch
1:30 p.m. | “An Enduring Impact: YMCA and U.S. Soccer” with James Brown
1:45 p.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Maud Smith” with Steve Bolton
1:50 p.m. | “Profiles from the Pitch: Maud Reader” with Steve Bolton
1:55 p.m. | “The Ladies’ Legacy: Women’s Wartime Football” with Steve Bolton
2:10 | Closing Remarks
Hosted in Partnership with:
