Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

In AAA to '03 (one of my favorite books), Bob Carroll and Bob Braunwart noted "there apparently were no football games worth noting in western Pennsylvania before 1890", but I found one in '89. The Pittsburgh papers reported a group planning a Thanksgiving Day road game against the Detroit Athletic Club, but never reported the result of the game. I had figured the game had never been played until noticing that it was reported on Thursday in a discussion of what sporting events would take place on Thanksgiving locally, that there would be no football game because the players had headed to Detroit the day before. That led me to believe there was most likely a game. I was able to track down the result in the Friday Detroit Free Press:



In terms of the make up of the team, I recognized future AAA players O.D. Thompson, R.C. Fry, and Ed Brainerd. D. Barr, an early halfback for the P.A.C, got stuck on the line. The way they reported the positions was interesting. They called out: LHB, RHB, FB, and QB, but then just labeled the rest "rushers". I've seen that a few times and from what I recall it was more often the case prior to 1890. The more familiar Detroit players however were tagged with the actual lineman positions you would expect. And finally, I didn't even think of this at first, but it seems appropriate that a group of players, some of whom would play in the more famous 1892 game, played in their first game on Thanksgiving in Detroit, a tradition that still exists in the present day.

Good stuff.

Thanks @Reaser!

I was actually able to trace back games involving key Pittsburgh players and teams two more seasons. In ’88, 500 showed up at Recreation Park to watch a game between Pittsburg and Allegheny, but the teams were short on players! They ended up playing 9 v. 9. They played a scoreless 45 minutes, took a 15 minute break and after the break, Allegheny finally scored the winning TD for a 4-0 final. The Post did not reveal who scored but noted “the feature of the game was the playing of Messrs Carnegie and Thompson, of the Allegheny representatives.”

One season prior, in 1887, The Post published this game announcement:
But, bad weather played a factor again. In fact, most of the major papers simply reported football had been rained out, but the Commercial Gazette on the back page (with pigeon shooting) actually reported on the game under the headline "ONLY A SCRUB GAME" (The Harvard/Yale game was front page news that day). Again, there was a player shortage for the big game. This time, instead of playing with less than 11, Allegheny just borrowed players from Pittsburg:

 The game was played at Recreation Park and the reported final was 16-10.

Notice above, one of the Allegheny players to show up was not mentioned in The Post's announcement - O.D. Thompson. This was 5 seasons before he hired Heffelfinger.

Another interesting thing is the presence of a Carnegie in '88. I don’t know who this was, but Andrew’s brother Thomas had 9 children including some sons who would have been the right age to play football at this time.