As you know Roadies Blondie and The Captain took in Tom Brady's Hall of Fame induction ceremony out at Gillette last week with a couple of our fellow ghost hunters and had a great time!
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The NFL began it's life as the American Professional Football Association in 1920 as we told you and there were 14 teams and apparently at least two champs that we know of...
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And then came the AFL in 1960... The first league to present a real challenge to the NFL.
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​And with the AFL of course came our Patriots...

The 1960 Patriots were a mediocre team at best, finishing that first season 5 - 9, but they played in the first ever AFL game, beating the Bills 14 - 6 in an exhibition game on July 30, and losing to the Denver Broncos 13 - 10 in the first American Football League regular season game on September 9, 1960.
                                                             
​I give you your 1960 Boston Patriots
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​Nickerson Field at Boston University was the Patriots home for the 1960 season, but it was also home of the Boston Braves, and here you see it configured for baseball as Braves Field in 1958.

The school reconfigured the field for football for the Patriots, and in this picture you can see the checker board endzones.

The Patriots spent their first two seasons at Nickerson Field, but in 1963 they moved to Fenway Park and played there until 1969.  I have to admit I never saw them at Fenway, but I went to a Boston College Bowl game there last season and it's a much better place to see a football game than you might think...
For the 1969 and 1970 season the nomadic Patriots played at Boston College's Alumni Stadium.  It's really appropriate that the only picture I could find of the Patriots at Alumni Stadium was the one below.  In 1970 while playing an exhibition game against the Redskins a fire broke out in the stands.  Nobody was hurt as many of the 25,584 fans climbed the fences and ran onto the field until the fire was put out and most of them returned to their seats.  Unfortunately for the Patriots the game continued and in 92 degree heat they lost 45 - 21.
                                      Next to the picture from the fire is a picture of Alumni Stadium as it looks today.
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In 1970 plans were underway for a new stadium, but it would be awhile before that was going to happen, so that year and the next they Patriots moved to Harvard Stadium in Cambridge.

Here you have the Patriots and Bills playing there in 1971.

Note the massive parking lot...
Finally giving in to pressure from the league, in 1972 the Patriots moved to their new stadium in Foxboro, MA.  Actually being somewhat ahead of their time, owner Billy Sullivan sold the naming rights to the stadium and Schaefer Stadium was open for business.
​The dump known as Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium would be home to the team for 30 years.
In one of the great examples of perfect timing in sports history, the Patriots win their first Super Bowl in 2001, and their new stadium opens on September 9, 2002 with the raising of the Super Bowl XXXVI banner and the Patriots beating the Steelers 30 - 14 on Monday Night Football.
The other thing that happened of course was the rise of The GOAT.  That Monday night was the start of TB12's first full season as QB1 of the New England Patriots and the rest, as they say, is history.

Some of the TB12 stuff we talked about on the NFL/Patriots/TB12 episode...