Jim Vogt, one of the driving forces behind the saving of the storied Metropolitan Oval in Maspeth, Queens, is stepping down as president of Met Oval after 18 years in that position.
The Metropolitan Oval was originally built in 1925 by Germans and Ethnic German-Hungarian Immigrants to be a European style soccer field with facilities. From 1925 onwards, the Oval served as a soccer field for men and boys of all ages and ethnicities. Many U.S. national team players from the New York region played games at the Oval while youths.
By the 1990s, however, the Oval was in a state of disarray. Any grass the field once had was gone from overuse. It owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes and was scheduled for foreclosure by the city.
In response to this state of affairs, the Metropolitan Oval Foundation was formed to save this historic site. The non-profit organization led by Vogt, a longtime Queens native, and Chuck Jacob and Valerie Jacob, two New York lawyers dedicated to the restoration of historic soccer fields across the city, raised enough money to save the field from foreclosure. In addition, Nike and U.S. Soccer Foundation each contributed $250,000 towards the construction of a FieldTurf field and new lights for the complex. FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who visited the Met Oval in November 2001 after the field was resurfaced, called Field- Turf the “future of football,” according to a FIFA.com article.
