Frankford Yellow Jackets

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1926 Championship Team Photo

The Frankford Yellow Jackets was a professional American football team, part of the National Football League from 1924 to 1931, though its origin dates back to as early as 1899 with the Frankford Athletic Association.^[1] The Yellow Jackets won the NFL championship in 1926.

[edit] Team history

Its home field from 1923 was Frankford Stadium (also called Yellow Jacket Field) in Frankford, a section in the northeastern part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, noted for the subway-elevated transit line that terminates there.

The team often played a grueling schedule of 15 to 20 games a season. Frequently, they would schedule two games on the same weekend, typically one at home on Saturday and, because of Pennsylvania's blue laws, an away game on Sunday.

The Yellow Jackets had a hand in the 1925 NFL Championship controversy. A dispute arose over a game that the nearby Pottsville Maroons had played against the Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia; the Yellow Jackets asserted that their nearby rivals had infringed on their territorial rights by playing the game (against a non-league opponent, no less) in Philadelphia. The league agreed and suspended the Maroons, allowing the Chicago Cardinals to win the 1925 title. Frankford won the 1926 title the next year with a 14-1-2 record.

Mainly because of financial hardships brought on by the Great Depression, the team failed to complete the 1931 season, its last. On October 26, 1931, the franchise suspended operations the day after the team defeated the Chicago Bears, 13-12, at Wrigley Field—a result that ultimately took on some historical significance as the last time a Philadelphia-based NFL team would win an away game over the Bears until October 17, 1999, when the Eagles prevailed 20-16 at Soldier Field (Philadelphia also went 51 years without a road victory over the Green Bay Packers, with the Eagles' 1979 win at Green Bay being the first since the Yellow Jackets' in 1928).

Bert Bell and Lud Wray bought the team's franchise on July 9, 1933, under the name "Philadelphia Eagles". Some people assume that a simple name change transformed the Yellow Jackets into the Eagles, but that is not the case; Bell and Wray did not buy the Yellow Jackets team but rather the franchise, or the right to field a team in the NFL, that formerly had belonged to the Frankford Athletic Association. That franchise (Yellow Jackets) had been revoked by the league in 1931. As licensees, Bell and Wray then assembled an entirely new team to operate under the old franchise. For records and other purposes, the NFL therefore treats the Yellow Jackets and Eagles as separate teams.

For the first few years of the Eagles' existence, however, they wore the Yellow Jackets powder blue and yellow uniforms, which were later worn as 1934 throwbacks in a game against the Detroit Lions on September 23, 2007 as part of the team's 75th Anniversary season. Many members of the media mistakenly stated that the Eagles were still known as the Yellow Jackets that year.

[edit] Frankford Athletic Association

Founded in 1899 by a group of local athletes, the Frankford Athletic Association became the organization that would grow into the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The association fielded baseball, football, and soccer teams. The baseball team went on to win the 1905 city championship in Philadelphia, but that pales in comparison to what the football team would achieve.

The association's clubhouse was originally located at Oxford and Leiper Roads, now the site of Frankford High School. The field at this site, known as Wistar Field, became the first official home of the Yellow Jackets. Several years later, with the proposed construction of the high school, the team moved to a field a few blocks west, known as Brown's Field.

The association disbanded sometime before or in 1909. Several of the original players from the 1899 football team kept the team together, and they became known as Loyola Athletic Association. In keeping with Yellow Jackets tradition, they became such a powerhouse that they deemed themselves worthy of carrying the Frankford name once again in 1912, to become the Frankford Athletic Association.

[edit] Hall of Famers

• Guy Chamberlin
• William "Link" Lyman

[edit] Other Notable players

• Nate Barragar
• Bull Behman
• Jug Earp
• Two-Bits Homan
• Herb Joesting
• Mort Kaer
• Bill Kelly (football)
• Hap Moran
• Ray Richards
• Herb Stein
• Charley "Pie" Way
• Ed Weir

[edit] Season-by-season

(Record of NFL play only)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Ghosts of the Gridiron: The Frankford Yellow Jackets
• PFRA Frankford Yellow Jackets part 1
• PFRA Frankford Yellow Jackets Part 2