Kearny: The Cradle of Kickers : Soccer: New Jersey town regularly produces talented players, including three members of current U.S. team.

Scattered around this rough-edged mill town are the community’s proud jewels: lush green soccer fields, sturdy soccer stadiums and acres of unlined but meticulously mowed soccer fields.

These grassy soccer pitches dot the landscape like emeralds dropped from the smoky sky. They stand as a two-fold symbol: a thing of beauty in an otherwise drab industrial city, and a testament to Kearny’s abiding love affair with soccer.

Welcome to Kearny (pronounced CAR-nee), viewed by some as the cradle of American soccer. Adding credence to this claim is Kearny’s generous gift to the U.S. soccer team bound for the World Cup in Italy--its three favorite sons, Tony Meola, John Harkes and Tab Ramos.

That one town could produce the talent Kearny has--its public and private high schools have provided rich talent for collegiate soccer teams all along the Atlantic seaboard--comes as little surprise to people here, for they know that the best athletes, the ones with the most promise, would surely gravitate to soccer, the sport of their fathers.

“Kids here have grown up with a rich tradition of soccer, watching amateur, semipro and pro teams,” said John Millar, soccer coach at Kearny High, and former coach of Meola, Harkes and Ramos.

Soccer was shipped to Kearny--arriving literally aboard the ships that carried the Scottish, Irish and English workers bound for Kearny’s thriving Coats & Clark thread mill at the turn of the century. These sturdy immigrants, bound by six-year contracts at the mill, brought their families and their traditions with them.

Before long, soccer took hold. Mill workers played pick-up games along the Passaic River at lunch time. Sunday was also a soccer day, with families spreading blankets on the grass to watch Association Football--games between the Scots-Americans and teams from nearby communities.

The current crop of Kearny players owes much to its English forebears. In style and approach, many of Kearny’s top players have mimicked the straight-ahead, physical style of the English leagues.

“I think they took after the old English style,” said George Rogers, executive secretary of the Kearny Soccer Alumni Assn. “Our players kind of reflect the town--tough and hard-nosed.”

It was the redoubtable Kearny Rangers team that won the first international soccer game for the United States, 3-2. The Rangers were a feared team in the region, often playing a rival mill team, Our New Thread, sponsored by the Clark thread mill in Newark.

At the Kearny Public Library, which is as Rockwell-esque as public buildings get, there is an exhibit of “Soccer in Kearny History,” the memorabilia overflowing the two glass cases set aside for the display.

Library Director Ronna Pearl is happy to phone Rogers and Charlie Waller, a 1935 graduate of Kearny High and one of the town’s preeminent soccer historians. In minutes, Rogers and Waller arrive at the library to answer questions from an out-of-town reporter.

To assemble the exhibit, Rogers and Waller have apparently cleaned out all the basements in the area, dragging in crunchy leather soccer boots, deflated soccer balls and brittle black and white photos. One picture shows the burly looking team called the Scottish-Americans, the first Kearny team to win the national championship, or the American Football Assn. Challenge Cup.

The Scottish-Americans played their home games on, where else, Scots Field, which was, according to historians of the time, “Widely known as ‘the Cow Flop,’ on the corner of Central Avenue and Passaic Avenue, in East Newark.”

There is a housing complex there now.

Waller and Rogers admit that the immigrants brought not only their games, but their prejudices. Imagine the hidden political agenda when a Scottish team played an English team.

“Well, I can’t say there was violence,” Rogers said. “But there were the usual punch-ups.”

Although soccer teams were formed along ethnic lines, the players did not always strictly reflect this: A good player was a good player, and was welcome on the Scots-Americans even if he was German.

In fact, during World War II, many of the ethnic references were abandoned. In particular, teams in the thriving German-American league found it prudent to lay off the ethnic identification.

“The teams in the German-American League were always playing games for charity,” Rogers said. “During WW II, I would guess the German-Americans raised more money for war relief than anyone. You can guess why.”

A second wave of immigrants came to Kearny after the war, Italians, Poles and Lithuanians--soccer-loving people, all. Later came Latin immigrants who, athletically, melted into Kearny’s spicy soccer pot.

Meola and Ramos were spawned from that generation of immigrants. Meola’s parents, Vinnie and Maria, were born in Italy and came to Kearny in their teens. The Meolas, like much of Kearny’s Italian-American population, have a special--if not parallel--rooting interest in the U.S. participation in the World Cup. They feel they must cheer for the Americans, but their hearts are with the Italians.

Ramos, who grew up here but whose family now lives in Hillside, N.J., is of the Latin wave. His flashy style of play is emblematic of Kearny’s latter-day style.

“They just love to dribble the ball in Kearny, it’s a unique skill for them,” said Mike Rusek, Kearny High’s assistant coach. “We have gotten some good players from the Latin families. That’s really where we are getting our kids now.”

Occasionally, the power of football rises and smites lowly soccer. The soccer team at Kearny High is not allowed to use the football field.

Millar might be the only coach of any sport in America who can’t remember his team’s record. And its a winning one.

The last undefeated season was 1984, 24-0. He thinks his record in 10 years at the school is 265-48. The team has had seven appearances in the state final, losing only once.

In some New Jersey towns, high school soccer games in the fall are played in the early afternoon so there will be enough light. In some New Jersey towns, kids get out of school, then go watch the tail end of the soccer game.

But not here.

“Everyone just knocks off work and leaves school and goes to the game,” Rusek said.

Times change, though, and Kearny is no exception. The mills have closed. The once-thriving semipro games are scarce. Kearny High no longer pulls in 7,000 for games.

“You can really see it change,” Millar said. “It’s not the same. We have more competition. But it’s still going.”

But folks in Kearny are stubborn. At the Scots-American club on the corner of Patterson and Highland, they say the roar was deafening as Kearny fans watched on television while the U.S. defeat Trinidad and Tobago to qualify for the World Cup. Delis and liquor stores here tack “Good Luck to Kearny’s Tab Ramos, John Harkes and Tony Meola” in their windows. Soccer might have faded here, but even in its twilight, it is stronger in Kearny than in almost any other U.S. city. And, when the U.S. team takes the field for its first World Cup match against Czechoslovakia, it’s a good bet that the eyes of Kearny will be watching.