A Short History of Football

[radith]

American football gets it's roots from, of all sports, rugby. Changes to the game began fast, with the National Football League forming in 1892, though it was known as the American Professional Football Association until 1922.

The American Football League began officially in 1960, though it eventually merged with the NFL, an act which is what spurred the creation of the Superbowl. Aren't we lucky they got together?

The first professional football game occurred when the Allegheny Athletic Association paid William Heffelfinger a (then huge) $500.00 in 1892! Though there were plenty of 'athletic clubs' playing the game, it is hard to trace who the first ever football team was. At the turn of the 20th century, football was growing in popularity and complexity as a sport.

[OldRightHander]

A few more fun facts off the top of my head. In the early days of the league, there was no post season. The champion was simply the team with the best record. Eventually the league was divided into two conferences with the best team from each playing a championship game, one of the teams hosting the game. A lot of those early championship games were played at baseball parks like the Polo Grounds, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium.

What's in a name? In the early days of organized football (what we Yanks call soccer) in England, there were leagues playing what looked like rugby and leagues playing what we call soccer and it was all called football. An association was formed that laid down most of the rules for soccer and since everything was called "football", people would refer to soccer as association football. The word "association" would often be abbreviated in the print media as assoc. and eventually that morphed into the word soccer, which never completely caught on in England even though that's where the word originated.