During these dark, dreary days of Kansas City professional sports, it’s cold comfort for some to remember the glory days of Chiefs football.
Once upon a time The Kansas City Chiefs were a perennial pro-football powerhouse—at least while part of the American Football League (AFL)—who played in Super Bowl I and won Super Bowl IV.
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later known as Super Bowl I, and also then referred to as “The Supergame,” was played on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. NFL champions Green Bay Packers beat AFL champions Kansas City Chiefs, 35–10.
In 2011, after a 20-year search, the Paley Center for Media in New York found a video of Super Bowl I: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/06/super-bowl-1-video-found_n_819190.html
According to the Paley Center, the taped Super Bowl game was originally recorded on a “bulky two-inch video, and had been stored in an attic in Pennsylvania for nearly 38 years.” Amazingly, neither of the two network-TV stations that broadcast the game, nor either of the two pro-football leagues involved, had bothered to preserve a copy of this historic game.
The Chiefs were the second AFL team (after the Joe Namath-led New York Jets) to defeat an NFL (National Football League) franchise in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game, when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV on January 13, 1970. Unfortunately, that game remains the Chiefs' last Super Bowl win, or appearance.
Originally named the Dallas Texans, the team that became the Kansas City Chiefs was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a charter member of the AFL. In 1963, the team relocated to Kansas City and assumed their current name. They joined the NFL during the AFL–NFL merger of 1970.
Footage of the Kansas City Chiefs playing in Super Bowl 1 and Super Bowl IV follow:
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