The first soccer club in the United States was the Oneida Football Club of Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1862. It is often said that this was the first club to play association football outside Britain. However, the Oneidas were formed before the English Football Association (FA); it is not known what rules they used[1] and the club wound up within the space of a few years. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the club is often credited with inventing the "Boston Game", which both allowed players to kick a round ball along the ground, and to pick it up and run with it.
The first U.S. match known to have been inspired by FA rules was a game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869, although the game included features such as extremely physical tackling and teams of 20 each. Other colleges emulated this development, but all of these were converted to rugby-oriented rules from soccer-oriented rules by the mid-1870s on, and they would soon become famous as early bastions of American football. (For more details see: History of American football.)Early soccer leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name football leagues: for example, the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). However, the word "soccer" was beginning to catch on, and the St Louis Soccer League was a significant regional competition between 1907 and 1939. What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the U.S. Football Association, formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word soccer in its name until 1945, when it became the U.S. Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word football from its name until 1974, when it became the U.S. Soccer Federation.Two further soccer leagues were started in the 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League. These merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968, which survived until 1984. The NASL also ran an indoor league in the later years. ndoor soccer was a great success in the 1980's to the 90's, in part due to the input of the North American Soccer League. When the NASL folded, other leagues, including the Major Indoor Soccer League filled in to meet the demand. A new MISL exists today with eight teams slated for the 2007-2008 season.[10] However, it is unrelated to the original MISL.
The first U.S. match known to have been inspired by FA rules was a game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869, although the game included features such as extremely physical tackling and teams of 20 each. Other colleges emulated this development, but all of these were converted to rugby-oriented rules from soccer-oriented rules by the mid-1870s on, and they would soon become famous as early bastions of American football. (For more details see: History of American football.)Early soccer leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name football leagues: for example, the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). However, the word "soccer" was beginning to catch on, and the St Louis Soccer League was a significant regional competition between 1907 and 1939. What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the U.S. Football Association, formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word soccer in its name until 1945, when it became the U.S. Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word football from its name until 1974, when it became the U.S. Soccer Federation.Two further soccer leagues were started in the 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League. These merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968, which survived until 1984. The NASL also ran an indoor league in the later years. ndoor soccer was a great success in the 1980's to the 90's, in part due to the input of the North American Soccer League. When the NASL folded, other leagues, including the Major Indoor Soccer League filled in to meet the demand. A new MISL exists today with eight teams slated for the 2007-2008 season.[10] However, it is unrelated to the original MISL.
History of National Football League Championship
Throughout its history, the National Football League and other leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champion, including a period of interleague match-ups determining a true world champion.The NFL first determined champions through end-of-season standings, but switched over to a playoff system in 1933. The rival All-America Football Conference and American Football League, which have since merged with the NFL (some AAFC teams in 1950 and all ten AFL teams in 1970 respectively), began using the playoff system since the creation of their respective leagues.From 1966–1969 prior to the AFL-NFL merger, the NFL and the AFL held a "world championship" game. The game was first called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game later renamed the Super Bowl. The Green Bay Packers won the most of these World Championship Games with two victories.Since 1970, the modern era NFL has become the only major professional football league in the United States, and its current league championship game is called the Super Bowl. The Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, and San Francisco 49ers have all won five Super Bowls. However, all three franchises trail the Packers in the number of overall NFL league titles, twelve. The current defending champion of the NFL is the New York Giants who won Super Bowl XLII over the New England Patriots its inception in 1920, the NFL had no playoff system or championship game. The champion was the team with the best record during the season, determined by winning percentage, with ties omitted. This sometimes led to very odd results, as teams played anywhere from eight to twenty league games in a season, and not all teams played the same number of games.There were at least two controversial championships during this era. The first was in the 1921 NFL season, between the Buffalo All-Americans and the Chicago Staleys. Buffalo had insisted that the last matchup between the two was an exhibition match not to be counted toward the standings; however, Chicago owner George Halas, as well as league management, insisted the game be counted in its standings (the league, at the time, did not recognize exhibition matches). The result was that although the two teams were effectively tied in the standings, the disputed game, having been played later, was given more weight and thus ended up being considered a de facto championship game. (Chicago also had one less tie game.) The second disputed title was the 1925 NFL Championship controversy between the Pottsville Maroons and the Chicago Cardinals. The Maroons had been controversially suspended by the league at the end of the 1925 NFL season for an unauthorized game against a non-NFL team, allowing the Cardinals to throw together two fairly easy matches (one against a team comprised partly of high school players, also against league rules) to pass Pottsville in the standings. The league awarded the Cardinals the title, one of only two in the team's history, in a decision that continues to be disputed to this day, with Cardinals owners opposing any change in the record and the two current Pennsylvania teams in favor. No action has been taken by the league itself to address the issue, although a self-made championship trophy from the Maroons sits in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In the 1932 season, the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans tied with the best regular-season winning percentages (although the Green Bay Packers had four more wins).
To determine the champion, the league voted to hold the first official playoff game in Chicago at Wrigley Field. Because of severe winter conditions before the game, and fear of low turnout, the game was held indoors at Chicago Stadium which forced some temporary rule changes.
The game was played on a modified 80-yard dirt field, and Chicago won 9-0, winning the league championship. The playoff game proved so popular that the league reorganized into two divisions for the 1933 season, with the winners advancing to a scheduled championship game.
A number of new rule changes were instituted, many inspired by the 1932 indoor championship game: the goal posts were moved forward to the goal line, every play started from between the hash marks, and forward passes could originate from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage (instead of five yards behind).
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