Original Princeton v. Yale Football Program 1880. Four page fold out program, measures 3 1/2 x 7 inches in size. The game was the college football championship game and was played at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan, which was located on Sixth Avenue and 110th Street. The program contains period advertisements including one for the Fifth Avenue Hotel in NYC. The inside has ads for jewelers, turkish baths and other companies. The program lists the players for Princeton: Bradford, McDermont, McKee, Peach, Bryan, Morgan, Winton, Withington, Harlan, Cauldwell and their Captain Loney. Yale's players are Fuller, Beck, Hull, Harding, Lamb, Storrs, Adams, Badger, Camp, Bacon and their captain Watson. The Camp listed as a Yale Player is Walter Camp, known as the Father of American Football. Camp introduced the following innovations into the game: the snap, the safety, the points system and the down system. He would go on to become the first coach of both Yale and Stanford. Needless to say, programs listing Walter Camp are very rare. This game was played on Thanksgiving Day and according to the account in The New York Times the next day, the conditions were miserable. The field was in terrible condition, having been covered with two inches of snow from the night before and morning. Most of the 4,000 fans stood to watch the action, with a small number either sitting in the grandstands or "wrapped themselves in buffalo robes on top of hotel coaches and carriages." 100 such carriages were present. After the field was cleared and play began a blinding snowstorm started again. The game was played in two 45 minutes periods (described by The Times as innings) with a 15 minute rest period in which the players stood around hot fires in their dressing rooms while the fans ran around the field to keep warm. The sloppy game ended in a tie and when it was over, the fans ran onto the field and carried off the players from both teams. Since Yale had a better record among Ivy League teams it claimed to be the champion in 1880, a claim Princeton disputed. The front of the program has some light soiling/foxing, otherwise it is is very good condition. An exceedingly rare and historic program of an important game in college football history and with Walter Camp playing in a championship game!

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