Amateur era The first four years of Greensburg Athletic Association football that began with the 1890 season, through 1893, were not particularly successful. The drawbacks included a lack of local opponents, rivalries which did not develop until later as well as a lack of local experienced players. The Greensburg Athletic Association kicked off its
inaugural season in 1890. Their first game resulted in 6–6 tie against Indiana Normal (
IUP), while losing their first-ever home game to the
Kiskiminetas Springs School, 34–4. A group of college students, which of whom returned home to Greensburg for
Thanksgiving vacation, played for the team for a game against an unknown Pittsburgh club to close out the season. However, the team, filled with supplement players, lost to the Pittsburgh club by a narrow margin. During the
1891 season, the club played at least one game, suffering a loss against one of the top football athletic clubs in Pittsburgh, the
Allegheny Athletic Association. The surviving records of the club's
1892 campaign show only three games being played, a 28–0 win against Uniontown and losses against Western University of Pennsylvania (today the
University of Pittsburgh), 6–2, and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 28–0. During
the 1894 season, Greensburg jumped out to a 5–0 record before losing 10–0 to the Altoona Athletic Club. A week later, a game against the
Jeannette Athletic Club ended at halftime due to disagreement between the two teams. The disagreement regarded the tough play of Greensburg's Lawson Fiscus, who was accused of kicking or stepping on the face of one of the Jeannette players during the game. A rematch between Greensburg and Altoona was held on
Thanksgiving Day. This time, Greensburg defeated Altoona 6–4 in front of about 2,500 fans. During this era, a
touchdown accounted for four points and the "
goal after" for two. Greensburg's successful season record of 6–1–1 led to an increased interest in football throughout Western Pennsylvania. Fans now turned out in large numbers for games, and even accompanied the team by train to road games. And while Fiscus was the only paid player on the 1894 team, several other pros joined him in 1895.
1895 Greensburg's
1895 season opened and closed with games against the
Latrobe Athletic Association, from nearby
Latrobe, which served as Greensburg's chief rival. The Latrobe team had an impressive squad led by
John Brallier who became the first football player to admit to being a paid professional. Greensburg won the opening game 25–0 over Latrobe, and the second game 42–2 over Western University of Pennsylvania, to start the season 2–0. Soon afterward, Fiscus and two former
Penn State University players,
Charlie Atherton (who was also the team's coach) and
Fred Robison, turned down an offer promising each of them $125 a month to play for the upstart
Duquesne Country and Athletic Club, located in Pittsburgh. They were induced to stay with Greensburg when "interested parties" in that city raised some extra money to guarantee to the players. After a 6–0 start the team tied the Pittsburgh Athletic Club 0–0 at P.A.C. Park.
Decline The start of
the 1898 season saw optimism in Greensburg with the return of ex-coach Charlie Atherton. However, some of the players from the 1897 season had bigger offers to play elsewhere and left the team. Replacing these players proved hard since the amount of money to lure new talent to Greensburg was hard to come by in a small city. Greensburg's first game that season was against their rivals, Latrobe. The game was played on a field so muddy that the game had to be delayed at one point so that mud could be removed from the eyes, nose, mouth and ears of Latrobe's
Ed Abbaticchio, who was buried in the mud on one of his carries. Latrobe went on to win the game 6–0 (4–0 by other accounts). The 1898 season would go on to be marred with another loss to Latrobe, and ties against Duquesne Country and Athletic Club and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. However, the team later turned things around to finish the season strong. In the final game of the season, Greensburg beat rival Latrobe 6–0 at Latrobe. According to the
Greensburg Daily Tribune, the end of the game was marred by stoning and spitting on Greensburg players and fans, "boorish conduct by ruffians," resulting in one player being injured when he was hit on the head by a rock. After an apparent decline in financial resources and interest, professional football in Greensburg and Latrobe underwent a one-year hiatus in 1899. Some efforts were made to reorganize a team around a core of local members of the 1898 squad, which would have to be shored up by obtaining some Latrobe players. This effort never materialized. When the 1899 season began, most of the top Greensburg players of the year before were playing for either Greensburg's rivals in Pittsburgh or for other teams as far away as
Newark, New Jersey. As result of not having a Greensburg or Latrobe team in 1899, the football clubs from Pittsburgh completed their schedules by playing teams mainly from eastern Pennsylvania. Greensburg began the season 3–0–1, before losing 6–5 to the
Homestead Library & Athletic Club, a Pittsburgh-area team financed heavily by the
Carnegie Steel Company. Newspapers in Greensburg called it "the greatest contest ever witnessed on the Greensburg gridiron". The game also featured a match-up between two of the era's star players: Homestead's
Art Poe and Greensburg's Isaac Seneca. Greensburg newspaper accounts of the day state that Seneca outplayed Poe. However, the Greensburg club did sustain several key injuries during the game. By this time Greensburg was unable to regain its footing. A loss at home, this time to Latrobe, was sustained a week later on October 27. During the game a fight between Seneca and the Latrobe quarterback, named Kennedy, led to a riot between the opposing fans and players. This riot prompted the Westmoreland County Sheriff's Office to devise a heightened security plan for the return game in Latrobe. On October 31, the Greensburg team, still injury-plagued, suffered a third consecutive loss, 24–0, to Duquesne Country and Athletic Club at Exposition Park. Greensburg's final win, 22–0 over Altoona, came on November 5. However, the team was defeated again by Homestead five days later. The final professional football game for Greensburg took place on November 17 in Latrobe. Latrobe would go on to win the game, 11–0, claiming the championship of Westmoreland County. By this time, the Greensburg team was experiencing major financial problems. To make matters worse, the club's scheduled next-to-last game was cancelled because of inclement weather. Worse yet, Latrobe, which always drew large crowds when they played Greensburg, withdrew from a scheduled Thanksgiving Day game. Latrobe paid a $400 forfeit and withdrew from the Thanksgiving Day game at Greensburg to play against Duquesne instead. However, that game also had to be cancelled because of extreme weather conditions. Greensburg's final season record was 4–5–1. ==Legacy==