When Kentucky Football took on a railroad company: Revisiting the team's most obscure game

In 1902, Head Coach E.W. McLeod of the Kentucky State College (what is now called the University of Kentucky) needed to schedule a game that would give his boys a little practice before the official season kicked off. The option that materialized was against a Railroad company that didn't have enough players to even play. This is the story of the most obscure game in the history of Kentucky, and it all started with a tweet from "Texas Football Life" that made me want to investigate.

Coach McLeod and the Kentucky State College Blue and White's season was fast approaching. The first game was booked against Miami, Ohio, on October 4. McLeod wanted to get one practice game in on September 27. It should be noted that coaches are still known to start the season with a weaker opponent for some live reps and last-minute adjustments before the real competition kicks into gear. Nowadays, teams simply pay these teams to come in and get kicked in the teeth. In those days, they called it a "practice game," for that is what it was. For Coach McLeod, the most available team he could find was the Cincinnati Railway Company team.

In the early 1900s, it wasn't uncommon for companies to sponsor and put together sports teams for their employees similar to intramural teams in College today, or maybe an even better correlation is an adult recreation league. In 1902, there were plenty of adult leagues in athletic clubs and YMCA programs, even in other years Kentucky State College would take on "select" teams, athletic clubs, and YMCA football teams. It was also common for large companies to basically have their own athletic clubs, Cincinnati Railway Company was one of those.

As September 27 approached, a problem began to emerge: the Cincinnati Railway Company was slammed with work. There was a line to connect, and when the day came, the Cincinnati Railway football team couldn't field a team of eleven players. The game was to be forfeited if something wasn't done to remedy this situation. McLeod sent three players from the Blue and Whites to help shore up the railroad company team.

The weather was miserable, but according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, a "good crowd witnessed it despite the rain and the 'big circus' which was in town." The team went toe to toe in the first half with a Kentucky lead of only 6-0. The paper says that at this point, Coach McLeod took one of his players back, which led to a final score of 22-0.

There's one final historical thing to clear up, and you may have noticed the discrepancy. The tweet above and even the archived score list the railroad team as Q&C Railroad, not as the Cincinnati Railway Company. The "Q&C boys" was a nickname the paper gave the team because of the name of the most important railroad connection owned by the Cincinnati Railway Company: The Queen and Crescent Route, which connected Cincinnati to New Orleans.

The Kentucky State Blue and Whites would never again face off against a railway company, though they did take on other obscure opponents in athletic clubs and YMCAs to get practice or what we would call non-conference games. It was the first and last time they took on a railroad company.