THE FIRST CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
THOUGH THE 1909 GAME was the first to be played with the newly donated Grey Cup on the line, it was not the first time that teams had competed for the championship of Canadian football. On the morning of November 6, 1884 – Thanksgiving Day – the Montreal Football Club, having won the Quebec championship, arrived in Toronto to play their Ontario counterparts, the Argonauts.
The teams met on the University Lawn of the University of Toronto, Montreal clad in black-and-red jerseys while the Argonauts, who would later gain fame as the Double Blue, wore maroon. According to The Globe, the Argonauts, “though they played a good and plucky game … were overmatched in the scrummages, and their backing proved powerless against the brilliant attacks of the Montrealers.” Montreal racked up a 14–0 lead in the first half, and was just as dominant in the second, as the final score of 30–0 would indicate.
An item in the next day’s Montreal Gazette noted that the Argos subsequently “ ‘dined’ the visitors,” who boarded a train for Montreal that very night. Remarkably, the Argonauts weren’t done for the season just yet – they were due to visit Montreal themselves the next day for a game against the Britannias.
In 1892, with the establishment of the Canadian Rugby Union, the “Dominion championship” finally became (with a few exceptions) an annual affair. That year, Toronto’s Osgoode Hall met the Montreal Winged Wheelers at Rosedale Field – which would be the site of the inaugural Grey Cup seventeen years later.
The Globe reported that the game took place before a crowd of about two thousand, “including hundreds of ladies,” who spent the afternoon “shivering and shouting while 30 brawny young men struggled in the snow for the championship of Canada.” The paper estimated that six inches “of a fine sample of snow” covered the field at game time, and while the field was cleared in time for the game, “the sun and frost made the ground slippery and the footing uncertain.”
In The Globe’s estimation, “Montreal sent up a good fifteen, but … Osgoode completely outshone the red and black when the ball was out of the crush.” The first half, in which the home side rolled up a 26–5 advantage, “was decidedly the more interesting to the crowd. The play was more open and runs more frequent.” Montreal was shut out in the second half, as Osgoode prevailed 45–5.
YEAR DATE SITE SCORE
1892 Nov. 10 Rosedale Field, Toronto Osgoode Hall 45, Mtl Winged Wheelers 5
1893 Nov. 23 Montreal AAA Grounds Queen’s U. 29, Mtl Winged Wheelers 11
1894 Nov. 17 Rosedale Field, Toronto Ottawa College 8, Queen’s U. 7
1895 Nov. 21 Montreal AAA Grounds U. of Toronto 20, Mtl Winged Wheelers 5
1896 Nov. 21 Rosedale Field, Toronto Ottawa College 12, U. of Toronto 8
1897 Nov. 25 Montreal AAA Grounds Ottawa College 14, Hamilton Tigers 10
1898 Nov. 24 Ottawa College Grounds Ottawa Rough Riders 11, Ottawa College 1
1900 Nov. 24 Rosedale Field, Toronto Ottawa Rough Riders 17, Brockville 10
1901 Nov. 23 Montreal AAA Grounds Ottawa College 12, Toronto Argonauts 12
—— Nov. 28 Montreal AAA Grounds Ottawa College 18, Toronto Argonauts 3
1902 Nov. 15 Ottawa College Grounds Ottawa Rough Riders 5, Ottawa College 0
1905 Nov. 25 Rosedale Field, Toronto U. of Toronto 11, Ottawa Rough Riders 9
1906 Dec. 1 McGill University, Montreal Hamilton 29, McGill 3
1907 Nov. 30 McGill University, Montreal Mtl Winged Wheelers 71, Peterborough Quakers 9
1908 Nov. 28 Rosedale Field, Toronto Hamilton Tigers 21, U. of Toronto 17
No games were played in 1899, 1903, or 1904. The 1901 game was replayed after the teams played to a 12–12 tie.
There were also times when the Grey Cup seemed less relevant, when the tradition appeared to be petering out, when Canadians’ attention seemed to stray and tastes seemed to be changing, and it was hard to know for sure whether or not it might just fade away altogether. But what began in 1909 – with a trophy still undelivered, a game still developing, and a nation still in its infancy – has entered its second century stronger and more significant than ever. There have been a few bumps and bruises – and, for the Cup itself, dents – along the way, but come November, Canadians will pack the stadium, fill the streets around it, and gather around televisions by the millions from sea to sea to sea, renewing a ritual that began with Earl Grey’s simple, bright idea.
This is our game.
And these are our stories.
Early Dominion Champions, the Hamilton Tigers, 1906.
1909
THE BUILDING OF A LEGACY
Grey Cup action on Rosedale Field, 1909.
There was plenty of football talk in Toronto in the fall of 1909. In an era long before hockey gobbled up almost every month of the calendar, it was really the only autumn game in town, and the fans and press were abuzz about the season-ending matches to come.
But the upcoming Grey Cup championship, the first ever staged, was not the focus of the conversation. The local newspapers trained their attention instead on the final match of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union’s season. Formed in 1907, the IRFU consisted of the Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto clubs, universally known simply as “the Big Four.” The Hamilton Tigers and Ottawa Rough Riders finished the 1909 season in a tie and were set to play for the IRFU title on neutral ground in Toronto. The winner of that game would then take on the powerhouse side from the University of Toronto, which had won the highly regarded intercollegiate championship. And the winner of that game would move on to challenge Parkdale, champions of the Ontario Rugby Football Union, for the Canadian Rugby Union title and the new “national” championship, symbolized by a trophy that no one had yet seen and that almost no one knew even existed. (The notion that teams from outside Central Canada might be part of the mix was, at that point, hardly considered, though rugby was certainly being played elsewhere in the country.)
The first game was a minor sensation: fans from Ottawa and Hamilton poured into Toronto en masse, the Hamilton crowd arriving on two special trains, with five bands in tow, and with fans wearing yellow chrysanthemums – which, a century later, remain a traditional way of showing home-team loyalty in the Steeltown. Hamilton had won the championship the year before (a victory which would later play into one of the stranger footnotes in Grey Cup history), but on this occasion Ottawa won what seems to have been a less than thrilling match, 14–8 – almost all of the points were singles scored on punts – setting up an even bigger game, to be played against the mighty Varsity side the following weekend, a contest that was billed by at least one Toronto newspaper as being for the “Dominion Championship.”
The hoopla surrounding the second game will certainly sound familiar to anyone who has been part of a modern Grey Cup festival. Ottawa’s team was coached by Tom “King” Clancy, father of the Hall of Fame hockey player Francis, who later inherited his dad’s nickname. Tom Clancy was American-born and had come to Canada to play football, where he was honoured with the name “King” because he was “king of the heelers”: a master at the art of “heeling” the ball back to the quarterback (as was the practice before the modern “snap” was incorporated into the sport). The original King Clancy had led Ottawa teams to national titles in the past as a player.
Smirle Lawson, one of the standout stars on the University of Toronto team.
The Ottawa players actually threatened to strike the week before the game, because they believed team officials were hoarding their allotment of what would obviously be scarce tickets for the match, before they relented and agreed to play. Rosedale Field had been designed to accommodate about 3,400 spectators. But when fans started arriving a full twenty-four hours before kickoff, it became obvious that the final number would be far more than that. The Ottawa crowd came in their own fifteen-car train and, the night before the game, joined Toronto supporters in all-night marathon dances. On the morning of November 27 – game day – they began lining up at th
e gates before dawn.
Tickets were priced between 25 cents and $1.25; a carriage could be driven into the grounds for a dollar, with an additional 50 cents charged for each passenger. In the end, that added up to a remarkable $7,000 take at the box office, and a crowd (including those who climbed trees to get a look at the action) estimated at 12,000. But the game itself was disappointing – no contest, really, as the college boys thumped Ottawa 31–7, keyed by the great open-field running of halfback Smirle Lawson. There was no serious debate now as to which was the best football team in Canada. The match to follow, against the Parkdale Paddlers, playing for a trophy that wasn’t mentioned in any of the pre-game press reports, was viewed as a mere curiosity.
Program for the 1909 semifinal game versus Ottawa.
(The University of Toronto and Ottawa teams, by virtue of being considered the best in the land, were invited to New York City that same autumn to stage an exhibition of the Canadian brand of football for an American audience. American football, which had been evolving along a distinct path since the famous first match between Harvard and McGill in 1874, had become notorious for its violent nature, and at one point was on the verge of being banned, so the Americans had some interest in exploring an alternative set of rules. But after some deliberation, the U of T faculty decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate for their team to make the trip, given that the players had already had their academic year disrupted by football, and several had important exams in the offing. As The Globe reported: “When the matter was first mentioned to Captain Newton, some [faculty] agreed to take the team down ‘in the interests of humanity’, as he aptly put it, having in view, no doubt the fact that thirty-two American players had been killed or died of injuries sustained in the game. When a canvass for the team was made, however, it was ascertained that only four of the players were eager to go, but the others signified a willingness to make the trip if called upon.” The Hamilton Tigers of the Big Four stepped in to replace Varsity, and took on the Ottawa Rough Riders at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx on December 11 in front of 15,000 spectators – a crowd that included Walter Camp, the great rule-maker and innovator regarded as “the Father of American football.” The Tigers won 11-6. When asked afterwards, Camp spoke admiringly about several distinctive aspects of the Canadian game.)
The final football match of the 1909 Canadian season was scheduled for December 4, again at Rosedale Field. And though there seemed precious little enthusiasm for the event among those who followed the game, at least one sportswriter tried his best to stir up some excitement.
“An entire new repertoire of songs and yells, in addition to the ones used at the Ottawa game, has been prepared by the Varsity students for the game today,” reported The Globe in the edition published on the morning of the game.
“With the developments of yesterday and last night there is more confidence than ever at Parkdale and less at Varsity, where the fact is recognized that the Paddlers are going to be worthy opponents of Harry Griffiths’ great team. The reserved seat plan is all sold out, and an enormous crowd is a certainty. Last night saw the first of the out-of-town arrivals for the big game. Those who admire high-class football will not neglect the opportunity to see the Varsity wonders and the tricky Parkdale Paddlers in action. The game will be called at 2:30.”
Rosedale Field as it appeared at the time of the first Grey Cup game, 1909.
What else was going on in the sporting world that week? Baseball’s American League had just announced – some time after the season had concluded with the Pittsburgh Pirates’ seven-game victory over the Detroit Tigers in the World Series – that Ty Cobb of the Tigers had won the batting title with a .377 average. In the world of big-time hockey – at the time nearly as murky and confusing as the world of Canadian football – the Ottawa team, which had claimed the Stanley Cup at the end of the 1908–09 season, announced that it had accepted a challenge from the Edmonton Eskimos (Ottawa would win both games against the western challengers the following January). And there was plenty of excitement surrounding the greatest sporting fad of the moment – six-day bicycle races – as the year’s biggest event was ongoing in New York City.
Meanwhile, in Toronto, only 3,800 turned up (paying a relatively paltry $2,616.40 at the gate) at Rosedale Field, a tiny fragment of the crowd the week before, their expectations low. Varsity’s coronation was surely a fait accompli.
The first Grey Cup game, in fact, turned out to be much better contest than advertised, with the underdogs from Parkdale putting up a seriously good scrap, and the University of Toronto team perhaps having read its own press clippings a bit too much. This is how the match was described by the correspondent from The Star on Monday, December 6, 1909, an account that gives a real sense of how this early version of the sport was played:
Varsity defeated Parkdale at Rosedale on Saturday before 4,000 spectators by a score of 29 to 6, and thereby became undisputed Rugby champions of the Dominion.
While the O.R.F.U. champions were decisively beaten, they proved themselves to be a better team than Ottawa, the Interprovincial champions, and gave the College wonders a much harder argument than the team from the Capital. Especially was this the case in the first half, when Parkdale held Varsity to a one-point margin, the score at the half-way station being 6 to 5 in favor of the students. The superior condition of Varsity told in the second half, and they ran up a score, though the last five points came after time was up, Lawson making one of his wonderful 50-yard runs for a touchdown, while the timers were on the field trying to notify the referee.
The first of many Toronto teams to win the Grey Cup, 1909.
THE “AERIAL ATTACK”
EACH ERA OF CANADIAN football has had its stars, those whose talents reflected the most admired skills of their day. Over the years these standouts have ranged from the rough-and-tumble “inside wing” plungers of the 1930s, such as Brian Timmis and Dave Sprague, and the talented two-way players of the 1950s, like Jackie Parker and Hal Patterson, to the more recent passing heroes, including Doug Flutie and Anthony Calvillo. In 1909, the premier gridiron hero was Hugh Gall, renowned for his “aerial” skills.
Today, the concept of an “aerial attack” is easily understood as referring to the passing game. But in 1909, the forward pass was not yet legal. Instead, punting ability was prized over all other skills – even above running with the ball. In Hugh Gall’s era, then, the aerial attack meant the kicking game, and it was his forte. He could kick well with either foot, and would kick on any down in an attempt to gain valuable field position. Scores in football were low in those days, and the “single,” or “rouge,” was more common than any other scoring method.
As a halfback for the University of Toronto and later for Parkdale, Gall played in three Grey Cups and was twice on the winning team. He was the first player to score a point in a Grey Cup game (after a 65-yard punt and rouge) and added that day’s first touchdown as well on a 5-yard end run. Gall’s eight singles in 1909 remain the record to this day. So the game we recognize as the first to award the ancient trophy featured a man who – despite the appearance of being much older than his years – probably could not be outkicked by any player of any age or era.
The best way to describe Gall’s “game” and persona may be found in 1910 Grey Cup accounts: “As Simpson was the main works on the Tiger back line, so was Gall for Varsity. The young player, with the old man’s face … booted the pigskin in the style that has given him the reputation of being Canada’s greatest.” In 1913, after Gall’s final Grey Cup appearance, The Hamilton Spectator assessed him as follows: “Parkdale was Hugh Gall and a dozen Hugh Galls couldn’t beat this team.”
No discussion of this great Hall of Famer would be complete without pausing to consider an oddity of the Canadian game: the average distance that punts travel has changed little, if any, since Gall’s day.
Where Parkdale showed superiority over Ottawa was in the variety of their attack. They had just as good a repertoire of plays as Var
sity, and pulled them off just as intelligently, but the wonderful defence of the collegians usually broke up the various attacks just as they were on the verge of completion. Particularly was this the case with trick end runs, the man with the ball being nailed by either Newton or Moulds, or the outside wings by a brilliant tackle when a good gain seemed assured.
Newton played a wonderful defensive game. He seemed to grasp intuitively what was coming off, and instructed his men how best to meet the attack, also performing wonders himself in the thick of the fray. He played up on the line all the time, and his side of the scrimmage was almost impassable.
Parkdale did what Ottawa couldn’t do, and that was to buck through the Varsity line for their yards. This they did several times, to the great joy of their supporters. Another feature was the way they marked Smirle Lawson. The great plunging halfback was usually nailed in his tracks by George Barber, who grabbed him high and held on like a leech. Barber kept Lawson from doing anything spectacular until the very end of the game, when he caught the ball in a broken field and smashed through the whole Parkdale team for his only touchdown.
The crowd enjoyed the match exceedingly, and the Parkdale team were given an ovation at halftime for their fine showing. Most of the people present expected the collegians to “eat ’em up” and at halftime there was some anxiety in the Varsity camp as to the final outcome. However, in the second half the powerful Varsity machine worked irresistibly and gradually forced up the score. The Parkdale team were always a factor in the play, but the defence of the collegians was so strong they could only secure one point in the second half.
100 Grey Cups Page 2
