The 1874 Harvard vs. McGill football game was a two-game series between the
Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than a ...
and the
McGill Redmen
The McGill Redbirds (formerly the McGill Redmen) and McGill Martlets are the varsity athletic teams that represent McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Team name
According to Suzanne Morton, a professor of history at McGill, the name ...
held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 14 and 15, 1874.
With the first game being played under the Harvard's "Boston game
The Boston game, also known as the Boston rules, was an early code of football developed by the Oneida Football Club, formed in 1862 and considered by some historians as the first formal "football" club in the United States. ", the second one was the first rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
-style football game played in the United States.[ It used three periods or "games" and ended in a scoreless tie.
A Princeton vs. Rutgers football game had been played five years earlier (in 1869), but under a variation of England's ]The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
rules
Rule or ruling may refer to:
Education
* Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE), a university in Cambodia
Human activity
* The exercise of political or personal control by someone with authority or power
* Business rule, a rule pert ...
, closer to contemporary soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
than American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
.
Overview
On October 20, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
than on rugby football
Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league.
Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...
, was drawn up for intercollegiate football games.[
Harvard, which played the ]Boston game
The Boston game, also known as the Boston rules, was an early code of football developed by the Oneida Football Club, formed in 1862 and considered by some historians as the first formal "football" club in the United States. , a version of football that allowed carrying, refused to attend this rules conference and continued to play under its own code. While Harvard's voluntary absence from the meeting made it hard for them to schedule games against other American universities, it agreed to a challenge to play McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...
, from Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
, Canada, in a two-game series.
The McGill team traveled to Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
to meet Harvard. On May 14, 1874, the first game, played under Boston rules, was dominated by Harvard, which lead 3–0 after only 22 minutes when the game was ended. The next day, the two teams played under "McGill" rugby rules to a scoreless tie. The first game featured a round ball instead of a rugby-style oblong ball.[ McGill used a bladder covered by leather instead of a rubber ball as did Harvard, which was much more difficult to kick. There were about 500 attendees, most of whom were students.] This series of games represents an important milestone in the development of the modern game of American football. A similar game was played a year later between Harvard and Tufts
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learnin ...
establishing this as the first game between two American colleges played under rules used in today's version of American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
.
At this time, the try was not used in American Football. The try would later evolve into the score known as the touchdown
A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...
. In late 1874
Events
January–March
* January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx.
* January 2 – Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time.
* January 3 – Third Carlist War &ndash ...
, the Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
team traveled to Montreal to play McGill McGill is a surname of Scottish and Irish origin, from which the names of many places and organizations are derived. It may refer to:
People
* McGill (surname) (including a list of individuals with the surname)
* McGill family (Monrovia), a promin ...
in rugby, and won by three tries in front of 2,000 spectators.
See also
*1873 college football season
The 1873 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Princeton as having been selected national champions.
The Harvard vs. McGill game played on May 15, 1874, was the fi ...
* 1874 college football season
*History of rugby union in the United States
The first recorded match between two colleges in game played in United States using rugby union code rules occurred on May 14, 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University. Predating rugby using the rugby union rules were rugby union styl ...
References
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1874 college football season
vs. McGill 1874
vs. Harvard 1874
History of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Sports competitions in Massachusetts
Sports in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Tourist attractions in Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 1874 sports events
1874 in sports in Massachusetts