CSI:Oregon's Cameron Cup examined

long wave UV examination of the
Bennett Trophy.

The Bennett Trophy is more
mysterious.  who was bennett?

Not too many months past, I wrote in astonished glee of the recovery of the Cameron Cup,  Oregon's oldest soccer artifact dating back one hundred years.   Judge George Cameron, scion of that Scottish clan's Portland branch, donated the cup in 1909 as the trophy for competition in Association Football in Portland.  For decades small plaques added to the cup's base recorded the outcomes of pitch battles between teams like Sellwood and Clan McLeay and Longview and MAAC.  At some point in the late 70s or early 80s,  the cup and the competition with which it had been associated disappeared and there was no clear trace of the story behind the judge's bequest nor behind what had happened with the cup itself.   

In late 2010, however,  Roger Hamilton, president of Oregon Adult Soccer Association and longtime player and supporter of the game,  received a phone call from Washington state asking if he was interested in getting back two 'old trophies' which had been residing in attic storage up north.   Happily,  Roger took the time to go on a voyage of discovery to retrieve the cups.   Lo and behold,  one of them was the Cameron Cup.  The other was the Bennett Trophy, noted in newspaper articles from the early 30s but without clear understanding for which competition it was the prize. 

the cameron cup- a century of oregon soccer

To make a long story short,  I was privileged to accompany Roger to meet with Tom Fuller,  a professional conservator this week to have the two cups examined.   Conservators are the people in the museum world who do the CSI work,  looking at objects in great detail with many tools and sharp observational skills so as to decipher details about their composition, their stories, as well as what might be done to preserve their authentic character and extend their lives.   Fuller, who donated his time while in town on a project for the Oregon Historical Society, looked both cups over in great detail and was able to suggest likely answers to basic questions about their evolution--such as whether the bases were originally attached or added later.  Also noting that the small metal tags denoting which teams won the cup in which years had at some points been moved around the base,  possibly to make room for more additions.

Those small tags chronicle an Oregon soccer legacy which extends all the way back to at least 1910 when the cup was presented to what was, at the time,  the League in Portland.   Team names are engraved into those tags and into history as result. The most recent are from the 1960s.  One conclusion from our discussion that night was to catalogue those names and create a timeline of champion soccer teams in our city during the century gone by.  Amateur teams that is.  The guys who put their boots on and went out in the winter mud to 'have a try'.   

The Bennett Trophy is fascinating in a different way.  Its provenance isn't quite as clear though it shows up in team photos of league winners as far back as the beginning of the 30s.  And it's not clear what the competition was that earned the Bennett Cup.  The globe is inscribed "PSFA  Second Series". One assumes  the former means Portland Soccer Football Association.  But does "Second Series" mean a second division?  Evidence suggests that there weren't enough teams playing for there to be two divisions.   I think it more likely that there were two legs to the season, and that the Cameron was given for the first and the Bennett for the second.  We also don't know at all who "Bennett" was.   Or when the trophy was created.    

I leave these mysteries for another day.  Enough that Cameron and Bennett are back in safe hands and that we know for a certainty.  When you say "Rose City Til I Die" these days you are echoing a tradition in the game that goes back at least one hundred years. I'd like to know whether the Seattle Sounders can claim a soccer tradition that has roots this deep.  

closeup of the cup. "Portland Association Football"