The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football

by Keith McClellan

In the most complete and compelling account of the origins of professional football, The Sunday Game tells the stories of all the teams that played independent football in the small towns and industrial cities of the Midwest, from early in the twentieth century to the beginning of the National Football League shortly after the end of World War I. The foundations of what is now the most popular professional sport in America were laid by such teams as the Canton Bulldogs and the Hammond Clabbys, teams born out of civic pride and the enthusiasm of the blue-collar crowds who found, in the rough pleasure of the football field, the gritty equivalent of their own lives, a game they could cheer on Sunday afternoons, their only day free from work.

Genres: Sports

503 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[Rick Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books about early pro football generally focus on one team, one season, one aspect of the game etc. This book covers all the more successful teams in the 1910-1920 era (but mostly 1915-17), covers several important issues around the game, and fits in profiles of many of the more interesting players. It’s very detailed and thoroughly researched, but readable. It’s a reference book that can be easily read cover to cover. Quite an achievement.

[The University of Akron Press]

The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football (Ohio History and Culture) by Keith McClellan (1998)