Here First - New York City's Senior Teams Quiz

Answer: New Britain

The New York Giants' foundation came about through a desire to have an NFL presence in New York City. There had been a team named the Giants that played in Brooklyn between 1921 and 1923, and the name (which was also used by New York's National League baseball team) was resurrected two years later when New York bookmaker Tim Mara paid a $500 investment fee for an NFL franchise. On 4 October 1925, a week prior to their first league game against the Providence Steamrollers, the Giants lined up against the All-New Britain football club, from New Britain, Connecticut, to play their first ever game.

A crowd of 10,000 were at Willow Brook Park in New Britain to see the new NFL team score a 26-0 victory against the local side, who were an experienced outfit who had played against a number of NFL teams. The Giants eventually finished their first season with an 8-4 record, coming fourth in the league standings.

Answer: Chicago Bears

The Giants won their first NFL title in 1927, at a time when the league champion was decided on the basis of the league table. However, in 1932, the league was forced to institute a play-off game between the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans, who had finished the season with identical records. The success of the play-off convinced the NFL to alter the league structure from a single table to two divisions, with the winners of each meeting in a championship game at the end of the season to determine the overall champion.

At the end of the 1933 season, the Giants finished top of the new Eastern Division with an 11-3 record, and faced the reigning NFL champion Chicago Bears, who had won the Western Division. the game, held at the Bears' home stadium of Wrigley Field, was the third meeting between the two teams that season, with each team having one win. The Bears ended up winning 23-21 for their second consecutive league title. The two teams returned to the championship game the following year, with the Giants winning 30-13 thanks to 27 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.

Answer: Yale

By the early 1970s, the Giants, despite approaching their half century, had never owned their own stadium, having spent their history sharing baseball stadia, first with their namesake New York Giants at the Polo Grounds until 1955, after which they moved to share Yankee Stadium with the New York Yankees. So, in 1971, they came to an agreement with the New Jersey state government to construct a new football stadium at East Rutherford, to be opened in 1976. However, in 1973, the Yankees closed Yankee Stadium for two years for the venue to undergo major structural repairs.

As a result of Yankee Stadium being closed, the Giants were forced to find a new home venue. For more than a decade, the team had played pre-season games at the Yale Bowl, home of the Yale Bulldogs football team, in New Haven, Connecticut. So, they game to an agreement with the university to play home games there, initially for one year, with an option for a second. The Giants played a total of 12 regular season games at Yale over the two years they were there, winning just once.

Answer: Highlanders

In 1903, as part of an agreement between the fledgling American League, following its coming to terms with the National League, granted the right to a New York based team, with the franchise purchased by two local politicians, Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery. The new team was provided with a new ballpark in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan, which was officially named "American League Park" but, because of its elevation, came to be more commonly known as Hilltop Park. As a result of this, the new team, although not having an official nickname, came to be known as the New York Highlanders, a nickname reinforced by their president at the time being Joseph Gordon, as they were referred to as "Gordon's Highlanders", a play on the Gordon Highlanders, a famous infantry regiment of the British Army.

The Highlanders remained at Hilltop Park for a decade, although during that time they never reached the World Series. By 1912, Frank Farrell began looking for a site for a new ballpark, as the team had difficulty attracting fans. While the search continued, for the 1913 season the team became tenants of the National League New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. At the same time, a new nickname, Yankees, was officially adopted - this had been an unofficial nickname for the team for their decade at Hilltop Park, and was what they had often been referred to in the press as.

Answer: St Louis Cardinals

Following the arrival of Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees began a period of sustained success that began when they reached their first World Series in 1921, losing the best of nine series 5-3 to their landlords and local rivals, the Giants. The two met again in 1922, with the Giants sweeping the series 4-0 (with one tie), and again in 1923, with the Yankees this time triumphant 4-2. While the Giants returned again in 1924, it was another three years before the Yankees returned to the Fall Classic.

In their first World Series against a team other than the New York Giants, the Yankees faced off against the St Louis Cardinals, who had reached the series for the first time. An evenly matched pair led to the fate of the title swing throughout the series, with the Cardinals eventually winning the decisive seventh game to take the series 4-3. However, the Yankees returned the following year, with the 1927 team being the first to be given the famous "Murderers' Row" moniker owing to their fearsome batting lineup, including Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri among others. Having won the AL pennant, they went on to sweep the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-0 in the World Series, the first time an AL team had won the series without losing a game.

Answer: Hilltop Park

Hilltop Park, which was officially named "American League Park", was located on a parcel of land between 165th and 168th Streets, and was quickly built following the establishment of New York's AL franchise in 1903. Initially seating 16,000, it saw its first game on 30 April 1903 when the New York Highlanders played the Washington Senators. Even when built, the structure was fairly ramshackle, with some of the bleachers not completed until two months after it opened, and a swamp that needed to be drained and filled with rock in right field.

In 1911, following the destruction of the Polo Grounds, the New York Giants moved to Hilltop Park until their new stadium was ready. Two years later, the Highlanders ten year lease on Hilltop Park expired and they elected to leave, instead moving in to the rebuilt Polo Grounds to share with the Giants, when they were renamed as the Yankees. It was while at the Polo Grounds that the Yankees played their first two World Series in 1921 and 22 against the Giants, although by 1923 their newly built home in the Bronx, Yankee Stadium, was complete, with the team playing their first game there on 18 April 1923 against the Boston Red Sox.

Answer: Washington Irving

In 1809, Washington Irving wrote a book entitled "A History of New York", a satirical parody on the city's history, under the pseudonym "Diedrich Knickerbocker". The word "knickerbocker" was subsequently adopted to refer to residents of Manhattan. In 1946, with the rise in popularity of college basketball in the Big Apple, the president of the company that owned Madison Square Garden, Ned Irish, was able to obtain the right to one of the charter franchises of the Basketball Association of America for New York City.

Having obtained the franchise, the new owner sought a distinctive name for his team, one that would clearly represent the city. In order to choose a name, Irish called his staff together in a meeting, asking them to vote for a selection of names. Upon tallying up the votes, "Knickerbockers", from the Washington Irving book and subsequent use to describe New Yorkers in general, was the winner. Subsequent to the name being adopted, it was colloquially shortened to simply "Knicks".

Answer: Los Angeles Lakers

The early 1970s were the highlight of the Knicks' first decades, as, beginning in 1970, they reached the Eastern Division / Conference finals for five straight years, reaching the NBA Finals in three of them, and winning two championships. In each of those three finals, the Knicks faced off against the Los Angeles Lakers, who had made regular appearances in the league's showpiece since they had made the move to California from Minneapolis a decade earlier, but hadn't won the title since 1954.

In 1970, the Knicks reached the playoffs having won the Eastern Division, while the Lakers were second in the Western. The Finals saw the Knicks triumph by four games to three in the best of seven series. Two years later, the Knicks and Lakers returned to the finals, this with the Knicks having come second in their division and the Lakers top. The 1972 finals ended in a 4-1 victory for the Lakers. Twelve months after that, the pair met in the finals for a third time, with both having finished second in their respective divisions during the regular season. This time, the result was reversed, and the Knicks came out of the series with a 4-1 victory.

Answer: 69th Regiment Armory

Although the New York BAA franchise was originally purchased by Ned Irish, the president of the company operating Madison Square Garden, the Knicks never had exclusive access to the venue in their early years, and were often forced to find another home arena when the Garden was scheduled to play host to other events. The one that was used was the 69th Regiment Armory, a National Guard building located on Lexington Avenue that hosted the 69th Infantry Regiment, but also contained a 7,000 seat arena that could be used for basketball.

The Knicks first played at the Armory 24 times in their first season, and continued to play there regularly after that, including in the three consecutive NBA Finals series they played between 1951 and 1953, losing once to the Rochester Royals and twice to the Minneapolis Lakers. It was only after 1960 that the ownership of Madison Square Garden began giving priority to the Knicks' schedule, as the team was increasing in popularity. By 1963, a new Madison Square Garden was under construction on the site of the old Penn Station, opening in 1968. Having not reach the NBA Finals since 1953, this meant that the old Garden never hosted a Finals game.

Answer: Giants

The NFL was first divided into divisions for the 1933 season, which was the first year that a championship game was introduced. Following the introduction of divisions, the Giants went on a run of sustained success, winning the NFL Eastern Division eight times between 1933 and 1946, although that period only saw them win the NFL Championship twice.

From 1950 onwards, the league's two divisions were renamed as "conferences", with divisions of these two only reintroduced in 1967. By this point, the Giants had reached a nadir in fortunes - having reached the championship game six times in eight years between 1956 and 1963, they only had two winning seasons between 1964 and 1978. Their next divisional title came when they won the NFC East in 1986, with their tenth divisional title coming four years later in 1990, with both occasions eventually followed by victory in the Super Bowl.