Dorri Partain
Northeast News

The Kansas City Chiefs first played a championship game in 1966, losing to the Green Bay Packers, 35-10.

That playoff was named the AFL-NFL World Championship and was due to a pending merger of the two competing football Leagues.

When investor Lamar Hunt wasn’t able to convince the National Football League (NFL) to add expansion teams or purchase an existing team, he decided to create a new league, the American Football League (AFL).

He convinced seven other investors to create teams, naming his team the Dallas Texans.

The Texans home field was Cotton Bowl Stadium, and despite an all-star team roster, they struggled to draw enough fans from the established NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys.

The solution was to move the team to a different city, and then-mayor H.Roe Bartle was instrumental in convincing Hunt to move his Texans to Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium.

Mayor Bartle was also instrumental in the selection of the team’s new name, as his nickname was “The Chief” due to his large size and as the creator of the Boy Scouts of America’s Tribe of Mic-O-Say.

Under the direction of head coach Hank Stram, the Kansas City Chiefs played in their new home town in 1963, facing the Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Titans (Jets), Houston Oilers, Boston Patriots, and Buffalo Bills.

When the Chiefs played their next championship game, the fledgling showdown had been renamed the Super Bowl, but the AFL champions still faced the NFL champions.

On Jan. 11, 1970, the Chiefs outscored the Minnesota Vikings, 23-10 at New Orleans’ Tulane Stadium as 80,562 fans watched Super Bowl IV.

The AFL had grown to ten teams when the merger with the NFL was completed later that year, making the Chiefs the final team to represent the AFL in the Super Bowl championship.

The Chiefs played their first NFL season game versus the Vikings in Minnesota on Sept. 20, losing 27-10; this 1970 schedule, sponsored by Hamms Beer, doesn’t mention the championship title won earlier that year.