In the decade from 1885, when the American Cup was first played, no fewer than five or, if a orthographical error is accepted, perhaps six Hoods were included in early Kearny and Newark football teams. And they include six perhaps seven initials or Christian names, T, J, James, John and Jack, W and perhaps S, albeit it might be a misreading of a J, and one, the last chronologically with neither. And together they played a dozen recorded fixtures with possibly others without record and, of course, the certainty of literally countless friendlies over ten seasons. Moreover, at least two Hoods, perhaps three, went on also to referee American Cup matches and one was in 1884 and beyond at the top of the then administration of the game in the New World, the American Football Association (AFA).

But the question remains who were these soccer pioneers? Were they related and, with Hood being a typically Scots name, were they, like so many countrymen, Jocks infected by a fever for the beautiful game before they left our shores for a new life and unable to suppress the contagion in adopted lands, this time the USA. And the answer appears to be mainly yes. In 1870 Thomas Hood Snr. emigrated to America the following year by his wife, Jane, their family then of four boys, Thomas Jnr. aged 10, William 7, James 5 and Graham 3 and they would go to New Jersey, to what would become the country's Soccertoun, Kearny.         

In the old country Thomas Snr., born, like his wife, in Scotland's, indeed the World's Thread-toon, Paisley, had been a foreman in a Cotton/Linen Mill but on the other side of the pond he found work as a Machinist. And he and his wife would have two perhaps four American-born children, whilst his Scots-born sons found work in the local foundries and mills. However, the date of the Hoods' emigration was before football had taken off in the old country so the contagion must have been carried to the boys by others within their adopted home-town's burgeoning Scots community. Nevertheless, it stuck and when in 1884 the American Cup was instigated two of the young men were involved and for the same team, Kearny Rangers, twenty-two year-old William at right-back, John at twenty in front of him at right-half. Moreover, eldest brother Thomas was also doing his part as the first Vice-President of the also newly-formed AFA, and would the following season at twenty-six himself make a once-only appearance on-field, in goal and probably as cover for an injured Duncan McFarlane.  

Willie Hood would continue to play until 1889, aged twenty-seven, swapping allegiance to Newark Caledonian and position to right-half. John, otherwise Jack, would via another local side, Almas, manage another year, finishing at twenty-six on-field at full-back now at Kearny Rovers. And by then he had been joined by younger brother, James, as an inside- cum centre-forward in the season when Thomas was AFA Secretary and also refereeing. Indeed he might have been doing so from as early as 1885-6.

James Hood would continue to play until 1896, aged twenty-eight. He had also from 1892 refereed American Cup matches and, when soccer in1906 re-emerged from the on- and off-field doldrums of the turn-of-the-century, he was there again to take the whistle for a final time in the competition. By that time it seems William Hood, a Machinist to trade like both his father and James, had died still in Kearny in 1894, whilst his three surviving, footballing siblings would marry in the town and continue living there until at least retirement, both John and Thomas working for the US Postal Service.