By KAREN KASPER

Special to the Journal

One hundred years ago, it was just another football game; a Sunday afternoon’s entertainment at Union Park.

The home team was the Twin City Eleven, a city team composed of 14 players from both Ishpeming and Negaunee. City teams were popular in that era and any community of size tried to muster up enough interest to field a team and often had teams for other sports as well. Most of the teams spent time and effort raising their own funds for equipment and for travel. Time for practice was limited; most players had full time jobs, and some had families. The Twin City Eleven had not had a team in three years due to the war and this would be the last year they played as a city team. The following year, 1920 would see most of them playing on the American Legion team.

The visiting team was from Green Bay and were called the Packers. In this, their first season, they were sponsored by the Indian Packing Company and supported by the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce.. They were a semi-professional team, fast and aggressive. Their team captain, Curly Lambeau, had played football at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne, with Calumet native George Gipp as a teammate. They had more time to practice and it showed. They had not lost a game. Most of their games were shut outs for the opposing team and only once in the season had an opposing team scored a touchdown.

The Packers were paid $200 to come to Ishpeming and play the Twin City Eleven. The team was accompanied “by a large delegation of Green Bay citizens, all dyed in the wool football fans.” (Mining Journal, Oct. 17, 1919)

A large turnout was expected for the game and extra ticket sellers were on hand. “Interest in the contest is very keen in both Ishpeming and Negaunee and it is expected that with good weather every football fan in both cities will be on hand. Large delegations are also expected from Marquette and the mining locations and towns west of here.” (Mining Journal, Oct. 17, 1919.)

The game did not go well for the home team. “The visitors were considerably lighter than the locals, but they made up for the lack of weight in speed and gameness. Every man on the club knows football and can play it. The Twin City gang was outclassed, and showed the lack of practice and, while the Packers are all “home guards“, they receive the backing of the entire city and are give time to work out several afternoons a week.” (Mining Journal, Oct. 20, 1919)

“It was in this stage (second half) of the game that Rosenow, a one-armed player, was sent into the game at half back. He proved to be a whirlwind, and frequently got away for long runs. He could handle forward passes with the best and was as fast a runner as any man on the team.”

The final score was 33-0. “While it looks big in figures, Twin City fans can console themselves that it is by 20 points the lowest score the team has made against an opponent this season” (Mining Journal, Oct. 20, 1919)

The write-up of the game in the Greed Bay Press-Gazette was not kind to the Twin City Eleven and George Newett, editor of the Iron Ore termed it “about as unsportsmanlike an article as we have run across in some days, and does not check up very closely with what Mr. Calhoun remarked to the Twin City management just prior to his departure on Sunday evening.”

Newett went on to write: “It is quite true that the game was hard fought from start to finish, but it is a mighty poor aggregation of football players who are not aggressive and in the game at all times. The Packers have been piling up large scores all year against weak elevens and they expected the Twin City boys to take to the woods and run away the same as some of those farmer outfits from down in the nickel cigar belt in Wisconsin.”

It is only with the passage of time and the Packers elevation to a professional football team that the game between the Twin City Eleven and the Green Bay Packers has gained an almost mythical status and gone from being ‘just another game’ to the day the Packers played in Ishpeming.