The championship years The franchise began in 1930 and was centred in Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans were one of the early NFL’s two small-town teams (the other being the Green Bay Packers). The Spartans were relatively successful and competed in the first playoff game in league history, a 9-0 loss to the Chicago Bears at the end of the 1932 season. In 1934, the organisation was sold and relocated to Detroit, where it was given the name “Lions” to complement baseball’s Detroit Tigers. In the Lions’ first season in Detroit, team ownership established a long-standing tradition by scheduling a game on Thanksgiving Day, which has been followed by a home game every year since (except during WWII). In 1935, the
