The Melrose Athletic Club was a professional football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 team based in Atlantic City

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 from 1921 until around 1927. The club which was also known as the Atlantic City Roses and the Atlantic City Atlantics was arguably the most popular football team in New Jersey during the 1920s. Due to the team's location in Atlantic City, the Roses attracted several of the teams from the Anthracite League

Anthracite League

The Anthracite League, also referred to as the Anthracite Association, was a 1924 football league comprising teams based in eastern Pennsylvania. These teams were based in coal mining towns, hence the league name's reference to anthracite coal. The league lasted for just one season, before folding...

, based in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, as well as the Canton Bulldogs

Canton Bulldogs

The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the National Football League, from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917, 1918...

, Frankford Yellow Jackets

Frankford Yellow Jackets

The Frankford Yellow Jackets were a professional American football team, part of the National Football League from 1924 to 1931, though its origin dates back to as early as 1899 with the Frankford Athletic Association. The Yellow Jackets won the NFL championship in 1926...

, Pottsville Maroons

Pottsville Maroons

The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1920, they went on to play in the National Football League for four seasons, from 1925–1928...

 and Rochester Jeffersons

Rochester Jeffersons

The Rochester Jeffersons from Rochester, New York played in the National Football League from 1920 to 1925.Formed as an amateur outfit by a rag-tag group of Rochester-area teenagers after the turn of the century , the team became known as the Jeffersons in reference to the locale of their playing...

 of the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

.

From 1926 until 1927 Melrose joined the Eastern League of Professional Football

Eastern League of Professional Football

The Eastern League of Professional Football was a football league formed in 1926 by independent clubs from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Eastern League was a regional minor league that never intended to challenge either the National Football League or even Red Grange's new American Football...

. The team would later return to the independent circuit after the league folded in 1927. During the 1927 season the Roses acquired many players from the now-defunct Philadelphia Quakers

Philadelphia Quakers (AFL)

Not to be confused with the defunct Philadelphia Quakers team of the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia Quakers baseball team who became the Philadelphia Phillies in 1890 or the University of Pennsylvania athletics teams, the Pennsylvania Quakers....

 who were named American Football League

American Football League (1926)

The first American Football League , sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League. Founded by C. C...

 a year earlier. Al Kruez and George Sullivan were in the Roses line-up for an October 2, 1927 game against the Staten Island Stapletons

Staten Island Stapletons

The Staten Island Stapletons also known as the Staten Island Stapes were a professional American football team founded in 1915 that played in the National Football League from 1929 to 1930. The team was based in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. Under the shortened nickname the "Stapes"...

. The Roses lost the game 6-0 after a late fourth quarter fumble

Fumble

A fumble in American and Canadian football occurs when a player, who has possession and control of the ball loses it before being downed or scoring. By rule, it is any act other than passing, kicking or successful handing that results in loss of player possession...

. Atlantic City's star of the game was end Whitey Thomas

Whitey Thomas

William C. "Whitey" Thomas was an American football end. At 5'10", 180 pounds, he played for the Frankford Yellow Jackets in 1924 in the National Football League at the age of 29 and for the Philadelphia Quakers in 1926 in the first American Football League at the age of 31...

, another ex-Quaker, who caught four passes for 101 yards.

The team played all of its home games at Bader Field

Bader Field

Bader Field , also known as Atlantic City Municipal Airport, was a city-owned public-use general aviation airport located in west of Atlantic City, in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. It was approximately one mile from the terminus of U.S. Route 40 and U.S. Route 322. Bader Field...

 which was, and still is, a part of the Atlantic City's airport.

The team disappeared after 1927; though no record is known to exist of them folding (not an uncommon occurrence among independent teams), teams that normally played them, such as the Bayonne Vikings and the Orange Tornadoes, suddenly stopped doing so, since no records of games against Atlantic City exist after 1927.