Since writing my book High School Football in Texas: Amazing Football Stories From the Greatest Players of Texas, I’ve been addicted to the website newspapers.com. I woke-up this morning and began searching for old high school football newspaper clippings.
The first thing I was looking for was a newspaper story on the very first high school football game that was played between Norwich Free Academy and Bulkeley School for Boys on May 12,1875. Trish Hoffman and I attended the 147th game in this longtime series in 2009.
Related: Norwich Free Academy/New London Part I
Bulkeley merged with Chapman Technical High School in 1951 to become New London High School.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a clipping from the 1875 game on newspapers.com, but it started me searching for old clippings of high school football in the late-1800’s.
Below is a smattering of some of the history of this great game via clippings.
Below is the oldest “clip” I could find. It’s from May 29, 1879 from the Cincinnati Enquirer, which still does an awesome job of covering high school football. The clip touts that Woodward High School will be playing Hughes High in Cincinnati, Ohio. Notice how the newspaper hyphenates “foot-ball.”
29 May 1879, Thu The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio) Newspapers.comWhile it’s well-documented that Norwich Free Academy and New London is the oldest high school football game, not many know that Hughes/Woodward is the second oldest in America with the first game between the two played in 1878.
Hughes and Woodward played their 143rd game in 2021 with Hughes winning 46-6. Norwich Free Academy and New London played for the 159th time last season.
During my research, I also came across the below video from the PBS television show Antiques Roadshow. It centered on a rule book from the 1880 game between Hughes and Woodward.
The next oldest clip I found was from Connecticut in 1881. It was just one sentence about the upcoming game between Hillhouse High School and Hartford High.
09 Dec 1881, Fri The Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven, Connecticut) Newspapers.comThis clip is interesting because Hillhouse is located in New Haven, which at the time, was the home of Walter Camp, who is known as the “Father of American Football.” Camp played football at Yale from 1876 through 1881.
I also love the below clip from the 1883 game between Hartford and New Haven high schools. It indicates that the game was already changing in the way score was kept.
12 Nov 1883, Mon The Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven, Connecticut) Newspapers.comBy 1885, the sport had spread from sea-to-shining sea with a game between Oakland High School and Hopkins Academy in California.
01 Dec 1885, Tue Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Newspapers.comWhile there are many, many more clips, I hope you enjoyed this peek into the beginnings of our great game.
