Excerpts from “A Different Ball Game: The History of Ball Sports in America”, John R. Fitzpatrick, Picador, 2007
“The 1910s are a pivotal period in the development of the various football codes in the United States – had things gone another way, one can easily imagine a single sport becoming dominant across the entire nation, either through the collapse of one of the rival games in meaningful participation, or through simply tapping into whatever the appropriate cultural zeitgeist would be. However, a combination of geography and personality meant that three games developed in parallel.”
“Association Football (or soccer as it is commonly known) was particularly robust in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and St Louis, the latter forming an unusual outpost. Competitions also existed in New England, based around Boston, and at an amateur level in a few other locales. Rather than a single league structure, there were regional leagues, of which the National Association Football League (in reality a New York & New Jersey competition) and the Allied American FootBall Association were recognised as the premier competitions “
“After agreeing to play in the Newark team, he [Meredith] was immediately vocal about the running of the game, able to cite numerous examples from his time in England. The Association of Professional Football Players (APFP) was formed in 1911, and, alongside the AFA and Leagues, became a powerful voice within the game. The working relationship with the APFP was a key element of the AFA retaining control of the game in the USA [1]”
“With Meredith in the side, Newark FC became challengers for both the NABL title, and the American Cup, although fixture conflict started to become an issue [2], Newark’s 1913 campaign thwarted after they had to play two matches on the same day”
“It was after Newark won the 1914 NAFBL competition, while Bethlehem Steel FC won the AAFBA, and the American Cup [3], that the idea of an organised National Championship was first mooted. Both clubs claimed to be ‘National Champions’ and a war of words erupted in local newspapers, with both sides having fervent local supporters. While the AFA would not sanction any kind of play-off, calls for a one off match to be arranged were loud. The seeds of the initial US National Championship had been sown”
“American (Gridiron) Football was dominant in the Midwest, in a broad swathe from western Pennsylvania, through Ohio and onto Illinois, although Buffalo and Rochester in New York state also had active teams. The Ohio League was established as the premier competition in the sport by 1910, and is the predecessor of the current NAFL : indeed, many of the current franchises can trace their lineage back to teams from this era. However, no formal schedule of matches existed, and teams were responsible for arranging their own games. As such, Ohio League champions, while regarded as probably the best teams of the era, are not included in any NAFL lists of champions”
“By 1915, it was clear that the clarity a regular season structure brought to soccer was instrumental in avoiding disputes over who the ‘true’ champion of a league was. Teams would avoid playing powerful rivals [4] in order to avoid defeats, and the status of ties not counting in the final percentage used to determine standings led to some heated debates about who the best team really was [5]. Ohio League teams would also play against out-of-state teams, matches that would boost the coffers but not count towards the final standings”
“At the 1915 league meeting, an historic decision was made. Firstly, the League would have a formal fixture list. Secondly, select out-of-state teams would be invited to join. Thirdly, once the League line up was confirmed, the teams would be split into 2 divisions in order to promote local rivalries, and a play-off between the champions of each division would determine the single true champion. Finally, to reflect these changes, the league would be renamed as the National Association of Professional Football Clubs (NAPFC), a name that was more hopeful than geographically accurate”
“In the western coastal states, the NRFU code was beginning to dominate, both at a club and college level, and this extended over the border into Canada as well. Two leagues for clubs were started in 1913 – the California Northern Rugby Union (CalNRU) established the California Rugby League and the Cascadia Northern Rugby Union (CasNRU) was formed, which included teams from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia [6]. Taking their cue from the NRFU in England, a play-off between the champions of the CRL and CasNRU was organised as a season finale”
“The switch to NRFU at college level in California also held for the time being, although it led to issues with intra-university competition, as the most other colleges still exclusively played the Gridiron rules. The upshot was that only Californian universities that maintained teams in both disciplines were able to play games outside of the west coast in the 1910s”
[1] – OTL, the AFA was usurped by the AAFA, which would become the USFA. Here, with the players working with the AFA, things are different
[2] – This was an issue OTL – Cup matches were often scheduled at the same time as league matches, and neither side would give way.
[3] – As per OTL
[4] – Without mandated fixtures, it was easy to schedule a bunch of weaker teams to pad your record
[5] – True. A team with 9 wins and 3 ties would have a 1.000 percentage (0.875 with modern rules where a tie counts as 0.5 win and 0.5 loss) whereas a team with 11 wins and 1 defeat would be 0.917. Under modern OTL rules, the second team would be champions.
[6] – No chance of getting these acronyms confused. The CalNRU organises the CRL, and the CasNRU uses the same name for the organisation and the league.