This week in Philly history: The first Army-Navy game is played in Philadelphia in 1899

One of American football’s favorite grudge matches, the Army-Navy game, didn’t make it to its fifth anniversary.

The Navy Midshipmen challenged the Army Black Knights to their first gridiron contest, held on Nov. 29, 1890, at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. Navy, the more football fluent, shut out their Army brethren, 24-0. Those stubborn Knights vowed to get even.

And the rivalry was born.

The two teams alternated locations those first few years between West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Those early games were bitter and bloody affairs, routinely devolving into fistfights and cheap shots.

But an especially heated contest broke out in 1893, which included Navy tackle Joseph Reeves wearing what many consider to be one of the first football helmets.

After Navy won, 6-4, a Navy admiral and an Army general entered into an alcohol-fueled argument regarding the game’s outcome.

Their spirits-soaked tiff became so intense that one challenged the other to a duel. There are contradictory accounts on whether it actually took place.

Regardless, news of the drunken confrontation reached the desk of the president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, who ordered the game discontinued.

Cooler heads would eventually prevail. The ban lasted only five years, and the football rivalry was reinstated during President William McKinley’s first term in the White House.

But to cut down on the animosity, a neutral location was selected halfway between the two military schools.

And on Dec. 2, 1899, Philadelphia hosted its first Army-Navy football game at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.

In total, the city would host 90 of the 124 contests. Washington will host the 2024 game — No. 125 — on Dec. 14. The game will move to other Northeastern cities over the next few years.

But in 2027, it will return to Philadelphia, where it belongs.