Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did the American Football League end?
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1969, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL). The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference (which existed between 1944 and 1950 but only played between 1946 and 1949).
At the end of every season, the American League champion plays in the World Series against the National League champion; two seasons did not end in playing a World Series (1904, when the National League champion New York Giants refused to play their AL counterpart, and 1994, when a players' strike prevented the Series). Through 2018, American League teams have won 66 of the 114 World Series played since 1903, with 27 of those coming from the New York Yankees alone. The New York Yankees have won 40 American League titles, the most in the league's history, followed by the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (15) and the Boston Red Sox (14).
The early history of the team is obscure, but it spent several years in local Philadelphia amateur and semi-professional leagues. In 1910, it began winning a string of league and cup titles beginning with the American Cup. From 1910 to 1912, they played in the Football Association of Philadelphia, winning two championships. They played the 1913-1914 season in the Allied American Football Association of Philadelphia. They then played in the American Soccer League of Philadelphia in 1915-1916, winning the league title, before moving to the National League of Philadelphia for the 1916-1917 season. In 1917, Disston A.A. went professional when it entered the National Association Football League . The loss of players to military service in World War I led to the collapse of several leagues and teams. While Disston did not end operations, in 1918 it did leave the NAFBL for a season. That year, it also won the Philadelphia city championship. Disston rejoined the NAFBL in 1919 and played the next two seasons. In 1921, the league folded when several teams jumped to the newly established American Soccer League. Disston decided against joining the ASL.
Between 1981–82 and 1999–2000, when the Connacht Senior League, was active the Connacht Senior Cup featured the members of the CSL and the champions of four junior leagues based in the province – the Galway & District League, the Sligo-Leitrim League, the Mayo Association Football League and the Roscommon & District League. Junior sides did well and featured in the first ten finals, winning four of them. In later seasons there were two more junior winners but all-Connacht Senior League finals became more common. The competition ended when the Senior league ended in 2000. During this era teams from the CSL also played in a separate league cup competition known as the Connacht Senior League Challenge Cup. 
In 2007 a second Connacht Senior Cup was launched. This featured the top two teams from the Galway & District League, the Sligo-Leitrim League, the Mayo Association Football League and the Roscommon & District League plus the Connacht teams that played in the League of Ireland.
In 1928, Deal played for Wolfenden Shore F.C. in the Allied American Football Association. He then went on to score eleven goals for the Philadelphia Centennials of the Eastern Professional Soccer League in the spring of 1929. He may have played the first half of the 1928-1929 season, but he did not make the goals list. At the end of the season, Philadelphia withdrew from the league and in August 1929, Deal signed with New York Hispano. However, at some time during the 1929-1930 season, he played two games, scoring two goals with the Newark Skeeters. The ESL continued to exist through 1930 when it folded. Deal’s career becomes difficult to follow after 1929. After the collapse of the first American Soccer League (ASL) in spring 1933, it was quickly replaced by the second ASL that fall. Deal then played for the Philadelphia German-Americans from 1933 through at least 1935 when they won the league title. He then continued to play in the ASL until 1938, seeing time with Brooklyn Hispano and ending with Philadelphia Passon.
Hammond was defeated by the team from Taipei, Taiwan in the 1972 Little League World Series.The Hammond Pros was one of the earliest professional football teams in the United States. When the American Professional Football League was formed in 1920, the Hammond Pros was a charter member, as it also was when the league changed its name to National Football League in 1922. However, four years later, when the NFL decided to reduce the number of teams, it did so by simply folding smaller franchises. The Hammond Pros never played a home game in Hammond.
Just as it did in many other innovative ways, the American Football League (AFL, 1960–1969) had a unique take on the uniforms of referees, umpires, line judges, field judges and back judges. With their red-orange stripes, black collars and cuffs, and AFL logos on their shirt fronts, sleeves and caps, they were not only more colorful, but easier to see than those of the other league. They were especially unique when seen on color television, which was also on the rise in the 1960s. Both the National Football League and All-America Football Conference had used colored uniforms in the 1940s.
James Zell McDonald (born March 29, 1961) is a former American football tight end in the National Football League. He played for the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions. He played college basketball at Southern California (USC) and did not play college football. His son, James McDonald, plays in Major League Baseball.
Malcolm John Frankian (April 3, 1905 – April 14, 1963) was an American football end in the National Football League for the Boston Redskins and the New York Giants. He also played and coached in the second American Football League, the third American Football League and the Pacific Coast Professional Football League for the Los Angeles Bulldogs.
While the team was founded in 1919, they did not compete in the National Football League until 1921, when the league was at the time known as the American Professional Football Association.
East Stirlingshire Football Club is a Scottish association football club from Falkirk. The club was formed in 1881, with its origins traced to the previous year when a local cricket club from Bainsford formed a footballing section under the name Britannia. After spending their first ten seasons solely participating in cup tournaments and friendlies, East Stirlingshire competed in regional leagues between 1891 and 1899, including the Central Football Combination and the Midland Football League. In 1900, the club was elected to the second-tier of Scotland's main national league competition – the Scottish Football League. The club remained in the Scottish Football League Division Two until 1914–15, when the league was suspended due to the outbreak of World War I. The league was restarted in 1921–22 and after a solitary season in the third-tier in 1923–24, East Stirlingshire remained in the second-tier until 1932–33 when the club was promoted to the top-tier for the first time but were relegated after one season. Between 1939 and 1955, the club spent only three seasons in the Scottish Football League after being refused entry to its second-tier after the end of World War II and did not join again until the 1955–56 when the number of teams in the league was expanded. The club remained in the Scottish Football League until the 2012–13 season, when it merged with the Scottish Premier League to create a new governing body called the Scottish Professional Football League.
After graduation, Riley became a manager, but in 1988, he turned professional when he joined the Albany Capitals of the American Soccer League. The Capitals did not renew his contract at the end of the season and Riley moved to the New Jersey Eagles for the 1989 and 1990 season. In 1990, the Eagles played in the American Professional Soccer League which had been formed by the merger of the American Soccer League and the Western Soccer League. Riley was 1989 All League and 1990 Second Team All League. In 1991, Riley moved down to Glen Cove of the New England Professional Soccer League. Glen Cove won the league championship as Riley was named MVP. In 1992, he again moved, this time to Hercules, again winning the NEPSL title. In 1993, he played for New York Atlas. In 1994, Riley returned to professional soccer with the expansion Long Island Rough Riders of the USISL. In 1995, Riley and his teammates won the league title. When he retired at the end of the 1997 season, Riley held the team's all-time career record for assists.
The league did not return. The NFL was without a competitor until the formation of the All-America Football Conference in 1946, one year after the end of World War II.
The organization was the third major league to bear the name American Football League. Its establishment resulted in the dissolution of the American Professional Football Association, which had just announced its intentions to compete with the NFL as a major league organization. In 1941 American Football League became the first football league to play a double round robin schedule (five home games and five away games). However, it folded after the end of the 1941 season.
Pogue left town several weeks into the season, and so Andrew Haines, at the time serving as the league president, hastily stepped in and took over the team himself. The effort did not last. After ten games, the Syracuse Soldiers suspended operations. They were replaced by the Cumberland Cardinals, Columbus Fire and Philadelphia Scorpions, a series of amateur outdoor teams from North American Football League, which briefly tried to acquire the AIFL in 2006. However, Haines claimed that the Soldiers had not folded, but were rather "reorganizing their schedule." Haines was ousted from the league when it reorganized into the American Indoor Football Association after the end of the 2006 season and the Soldiers were folded. Haines has not indicated he would revive the Soldiers or the Brigade in the Ultimate Indoor Football League.
American Football League (AFL) on ABC was a television program that broadcast professional football games of the then fledging (when compared to the more established National Football League) American Football League on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). ABC broadcast AFL games from the league's very first season in 1960 until the 1964 season, when NBC took over as the league's primary network television broadcaster.
Early soccer leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name "football", for example: the AFA (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). Common confusion between the terms "American football" and "association football" eventually led to a more domestic widespread use of the term "soccer" with regard to association football. Originally seen as a British slang term for "association", the use of "soccer" began appearing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. A noticeable example was the American Soccer League (ASL), which formed in 1919. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word "soccer" in its name until 1945 when it became the United States Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word "football" from its name until 1974, when it became the United States Soccer Federation, often going simply as U.S. Soccer.
Early football leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name football leagues: for example, the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). However, the word "soccer" was beginning to catch on, and the St Louis Soccer League was a significant regional competition between 1907 and 1939. What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the U.S. Football Association, formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word soccer in its name until 1945, when it became the U.S. Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word football from its name until 1974, when it became the U.S. Soccer Federation.
In the 1902 close-season, Cavendish dropped into the Hampshire League with Freemantle before moving in 1904 to the East End of London with Clapton Orient. After a year in the Southern League Second Division when they finished in eighth position, Clapton Orient applied for election to the Football League and were successful, taking their place in Football League Division Two. Cavendish made no Football League appearances for Orient, although he did make one appearance in the FA Cup.
They were an original member of the American Indoor Football League in 2005, and advanced to the first AIFL Championship Game. When the league was reorganized into the American Indoor Football Association in 2007, they continued league play until the end of the 2007. Negotiations between the team ownership and the league fell apart in late 2007, and thus put an end to the franchise. They were replaced in 2008 by the Erie RiverRats, who relocated from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, every American professional league was at a crossroads as the American entry into World War II meant that the number of men available to play football would be greatly diminished. The NFL and PCPFL opted to continue; the AA and Dixie League suspended operations after planning to continue play after the end of the war (the third AFL made a similar decision, but did not return). 
In American football, Canadian football-type singles are not used. Some indoor football leagues have used them, namely the National Indoor Football League, the American Indoor Football Association and the Professional Indoor Football League, all now defunct. The single was applied only on kickoffs, and was scored if the receiving team failed to advance the ball out of the end zone when kicked. The NIFL and AIFA also allowed a single to be scored by kicking a kickoff through the uprights (as in a field goal); this type of single was nicknamed (and was later codified in the AIFA rules as) an "uno", from the Spanish word for the number one.
Shawn Willis (born September 30, 1983) was an American football fullback who last played for San Jose SaberCats of the Arena Football League (AFL). He did not see any playing time in his lone season with the team (2007); he did, however, win an AFL Championship when the SaberCats defeated the Columbus Destroyers in ArenaBowl XXI at the end of the season. Willis was placed on the team's injured reserve list on February 18, 2008; he was waived by the SaberCats five days later.
Towards the end of his career, he turned out for non-league side Altrincham in the early 1980s, when they were competing in the Alliance Premier League (which became the Football Conference in 1986). He helped them win the Alliance Premier League title in 1980–81 (they had won it the 1979–80 season as well), but they did not win promotion to the Football League as the re-election system was still in place and the majority of the league's members voting against them joining the Football League, ending Stepney's hopes of a professional comeback.
Like the competitor 'AA' and the third "American Football League", the "Dixie League" suspended operations after the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan, on the "Day of Infamy" - Sunday, December 7, 1941; unlike the AFL, the football minor league reorganized after the end of the War and resumed competition in the first post-war season year of 1946. The following year, the 'D.L.' collapsed when one of its member teams purchased the assets of a defunct team in the other pro football minor loop, the "American Association" (which then changed its name to the "American Football League" in 1946)... and opted to jump leagues.