Looking through some old files, I came upon a clipping from the Philadelphia Inquirer (that big newspaper downtown) from Thursday, November 18, 1869, which was Thanksgiving Day.
It reported that at half past noon, those two great rivals, the Germantown Cricket Club and the Young America Cricket Club, ânow that the cold season had caused them to put away bat and ball,â have copied the latest sports fad of the universities, and arranged to play a match of that new game, foot-ball.
Each club had picked men to compose the teams. They had agreed to follow rules adapted from those used for the strange new sport by the Rugby School in England.