National Association of Professional Football Clubs

The first game in NAPFT history took place on Sunday, September 28, 1919, when the Oakwood Park Rollers hosted the Ann Arbor Gladiators in Kalamazoo, MI. It wasn’t a particularly exciting game, ending in a 3-3 tie that was scoreless for the last three quarters, but nevertheless, a new league was born. It didn’t take long for the season to get eventful, though perhaps not for the reason that anyone associated with the league had hoped. A week before opening day, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers went on strike. This put the Gary Broadways in an awkward position, as the players were all steelworkers, and were paid to play football by their employer. They cancelled their season opener, which was scheduled for October 5 th . The next day, a riot broke out in Gary that was so severe the National Guard took over the city and declared martial law. In the chaos, Broadway Stadium burned to the ground. The team would eventually play two games in Chicago in November

There are several men who claim to be the first professional football player. The dispute over who holds that distinction may never be resolved, but there is no debate that by the late 1890s there were dozens of teams full of paid players across the United States. For decades, all of these teams were independent, and while some quasi-leagues developed by 1910 (with Chicago’s four-team Windy City Championship being perhaps the most famous), there were no formal organizations. Teams scheduled games against professional, amateur, and collegiate opponents, and generally used college rules, though there were slight variations depending on where the game was played. World War I was hard on professional football, and a great many teams froze operations during the war or folded altogether, so when peace came in November of 1918, it was not clear that the sport had much of a future. However, a few days into the new year, representatives of 17 teams (mostly from the Great Lakes area) met in