Abstract
ABSTRACTOn 19 August 2015, the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer announced plans to sponsor an expansion team in the second-tier United Soccer League. Two months later, an enthusiastic crowd filed into the historic Bethlehem Steel plant in eastern Pennsylvania to witness the new side’s unveiling. Against the backdrop of towering blast furnaces that evoked the region’s industrial golden age, Union representatives heralded the return of Bethlehem Steel Football Club. This paper explores the nexus of past and present in the recycling of Steel. Juxtaposing the modern club’s retro-themed kit against the identity of its storied namesake, it argues that the past is simultaneously honoured and obscured. In so doing, it situates the recycling of Steel in its broader historical context, paying attention to the business ambitions of Union executives, the cultural penchant for heritage branding and the efforts of a once-vibrant manufacturing town to negotiate the realities of a postindustrial landscape.
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