Morris Levy

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Morris "Scottie" Levy (born Moses Levy May 8, 1892 in Kilwinning, North Ayshire, Scotland; died January 5, 1983 in Birmingham) was a professional soccer player and jeweler.

Levy was the son of Abraham Levy, a successful furniture manufacturer and dealer, and his wife, Sarah. The family moved from Kilwinning to the coastal town of Saltcoats in 1905. Morris briefly attended the Aschaffenberg Academy in Bavaria, Germany, but he was much more interested in sports than in academics and returned home where he was enrolled in the Androssan Academy. Levy was captain of his home town cricket team and played professionally as a right halfback for the Kilwinning Rangers, helping them win a junior championship in 1909. Later, while attending the Royal Irvine Academy, he played for the Irvine Victoria F.C. At some point Morris' mother and siblings moved to a house in Glasgow to be closer to a synagogue.

Abraham Levy's furniture business was bankrupted during the "long depression" of the late 19th century. The senior Levy immigrated to the United States and worked as a peddler in the mining communities of western Jefferson County. Soon Abraham wrote that he had secured a contract for his son to play soccer for Pratt City, where he could earn $20 a week as a bartender so long as he was with the team.

Morris left for America on August 14, 1914 and arrived on the S. S. Cameronia in New York two weeks later. He took the wrong train to Cincinnati, Ohio before finding his way to Birmingham. The promised contract with the mostly-Irish Pratt City team turned out to be short-lived, but Levy was able to play for Sheffield for $7 a month, and later for the Scots-dominated Wylam team. In all, Levy spent fifteen years as a professional soccer player and also dabbled as a coach and referee. He led Wylam to three straight Ramsay Cup championships, and was given permanent possession of the trophy.

When his bartending job was eliminated by prohibition, Levy briefly worked in the coal mines, but couldn't handle the conditions underground. He took to peddling jewelry and opened a shop in Wylam. He was able to use his fame as a soccer star to purchase goods on credit and was successful at business. The Great Depression hit his business hard and he lost around $1,000 in the failure of the Bank of Ensley, but recovered. In the following decades he prospered, making yearly buying trips to Chicago, Illinois and vacations to Miami Beach, Florida. He displayed the Ramsay Cup in the window of his store until it closed in the 1960s.

Morris was married to the former Beatrice Feinberg and had one daughter. He died in 1983.

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