So what started the Redskins/Cowboys beef anyway?

[Jess_in_beachtown_nc]

Not quite. Marshal's wife wrote HTTR, but they never got it copyrighted. The COwboys swooped it up and bought the copyright and held it hostage for a vote. Then, when they got their franchise, via league rules back then, they took all of the best Redskins on the roster at that time that they could and made them Coeboys.:doh:

You are dead on my friend..... Dont forget about the chickens though!

EDIT: I found this.... Gotta love Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboys-Redskins_rivalry

"

In December 1961, an unknown number of Cowboys fans snuck into D.C. Stadium, armed with bags of chicken feed. When Alaskan snow dogs were to drag Santa Claus onto the field during the halftime show, the pranksters would unleash dozens of hungry chickens onto the field - 75 white, one black. The significance of the black chicken was to symbolize how Marshall was the only owner in the league who would not recruit an African-American football player; Marshall boldly stating, "We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites."

The chickens fit into two large crates, which were smuggled into the stadium the morning of the game. The chickens and the smugglers went unspotted until halftime, when a stadium usher noticed a man guarding the crates and heard the chickens. Though the guard tried to bribe the official with $100 dollars, he was quickly reported and arrested, and the chickens confiscated. As it turned out, the "official" was actually Redskins general manager Dick McCann.

The following year and the night before the third Redskins-Cowboys match-up in less than a year, pranksters snuck into Marshall's hotel suite and dropped off a large turkey in the bathroom. When Marshall went into the bathroom, the turkey puffed up and gobbled at him, causing Marshall to flee his room. "Chickens are nice", Marshall said, "but a man shouldn't fool with a mad turkey."[2]

Just minutes before kickoff, while "Hail to the Redskins" blared throughout the stadiums, four banners reading "CHICKENS" - one at each 50-yard line and one in each end zone center - were unfurled in the stadium's upper decks. Two acrobats, hired by Cowboys fans and Chicken Club founders Bob Thompson and Irv Davidson (along with the University of Maryland students with the banners) rushed onto the field dressed in chicken costumes and began to throw colored eggs. One was apprehended by a guard, but the other proved to be too elusive. By this time, the band was playing the National Anthem, therefore unable to move. The lone chicken-acrobat reached into this bag and released a chicken, then returned to his egg-throwing. Running to a sideline, he then attempted to leave the stadium by jumping over a bench, but slipped.

A group of security guards then apprehended him, but he was able to break free. He made it back to the 50-yard line, turned a cartwheel, then ran and flopped onto the 30-yard line. By this time, only aware that the National Anthem was over, the two teams rushed onto the field in the middle of the chaos. In the midst of the ruckus, the man made it off the field and into the stands. Although the real chicken was caught, the acrobat-chicken was never apprehended.

The next day, while reporting the 38-10 Cowboys victory, the Dallas News scoring summary ended with, Attendance-49,888 (and one chicken)

[edgun88]

A couple cowboys and some Indians.

[redwoodaudio]

The history of the HTTR song stealing in order to get the vote is truly the first thing in the long line of Skins-Cowboys hatred.

A little musical history for you...

Because the Redskins were viewed as the team of the south (which is why GPM didn't want the cowboys joining the league) the original lyrics to HTTR said

"...Fight for Ol' Dixie" instead of "old DC".

I believe this changed during the civil rights movement as it was a thorn in the side of some of the skin's african-american players as well as many of it's fans.

You can all count on me for usely trivia like this...

HAIL!

[wlbai]

It just doesn't have the intensity of years ago....except to a few of us.

I must be one of the few then because I absolutely hate them :dallasuck :dallasuck :dallasuck

[redskin-28]

OK, I asked my Dad about it again. He said back when Dallas was becoming a franchise there were only 8 or so teams in the NFL, so every team had to offer 8 to 10 players to a new franchise team. He said there were rules so they couldn't offer just their scrub players either, so the Redskins had to offer their future Hall of Fame QB Eddie LeBaron who they didn't want to offer..... which was the start of the rivalry. Then as others have stated, when coach George Allen came along in the late 60's he really got the rivalry going as we know it today.

:dallasuck

[Skins1957]

actuallt it was Ed "Too Tall" Jones

QUOTE=riggins44]George Allen largely responsible for rivalry as we know it today. I can tell you that

it is not like it was in 70's and 80's. In those days it was pure hatred. Before one

game (Skins were to play in Dallas) George Allen told the team they weren't going.

He told the players that we had things worked out where as he would meet Tom

Landry at midfield to fight it out. The winner would get the game. To say the least,

this fired the Redskins up. After a loss to them at RFK, Randy White threw a wreath

into the Redskins locker room.

Free Agency, Norv coaching here, and some lean years by both teams calmed things

some. It just doesn't have the intensity of years ago....except to a few of us.

[chipwhich]

George Allen largely responsible for rivalry as we know it today. I can tell you that

it is not like it was in 70's and 80's. In those days it was pure hatred. Before one

game (Skins were to play in Dallas) George Allen told the team they weren't going.

He told the players that we had things worked out where as he would meet Tom

Landry at midfield to fight it out. The winner would get the game. To say the least,

this fired the Redskins up. After a loss to them at RFK, Randy White threw a wreath

into the Redskins locker room.

Free Agency, Norv coaching here, and some lean years by both teams calmed things

some. It just doesn't have the intensity of years ago....except to a few of us.

Ding Ding Ding...10 posts in and we have the winner. It was largely George Allen.

The whole song thing didn't create the intense rivalry.

The rivalry/hate is pretty much a joke now compared to earlier years. But its that way in all of the NFL.

[RedskinsInFebruary]

For those of us old enough--and for me--it goes back to the 70's, when for the whole decade (before parity and caps I suppose) the NFC was dominated by four teams: Vikings, Rams, Dallas, and Washington. The rest of the conference were perennial doormats. And which two teams were in the same division?

It was just a heated rivalry because the Giants, Eagles, and Cardinals weren't very competitive in those days. I think the rivalry has just been handed down through a couple or three generations.

[BigMike619]

For those of us old enough--and for me--it goes back to the 70's, when for the whole decade (before parity and caps I suppose) the NFC was dominated by four teams: Vikings, Rams, Dallas, and Washington. The rest of the conference were perennial doormats. And which two teams were in the same division?

It was just a heated rivalry because the Giants, Eagles, and Cardinals weren't very competitive in those days. I think the rivalry has just been handed down through a couple or three generations.

I think we nailed it with the Fight Song and letting them in the NFL.

[mcarey032]

Yes the "Hail to the redskins" song is the impetus of the story, but George Allen was the one who really exacerbated the whole rivalry. He was the one who was trying to motivate the redskins after they were coming out of the losing years and the Cowboys through the 70s were a very successful franchise. He targeted the cowboys also because of being a division rival.

[Veretax]

for me it goes on back to when I was first becoming a Skins fan, They'd ask me what my team was, and they'd ask me if I liked the steelers, and I'd promptly tell them, no my team is in the NFC east, and then they'd say, oh So your a cowboy fan. Man that always made me SO mad.

Then you had the days of Jimmy johnson, who even in when he coached in College I despised, then he got aikman and irvin. Their stars that got in trouble with crack and such. It just grew from then on. I have always disliked the Cowboys, (It may also stem back to the family team being the "packers" IE that we always would route for them unless we had another one team that they were playing. And my whole family always hated the cowboys so.

[wheeler]

I can't believe some people on here don't really know it. I remember wanting to learn when I was really young. I didn't just hate for the hell of it. I knew that Cowboys and Indians always hated each other, but my father told me the story when I was 9. Being a Redskins fan, how can you hate when you don't know why you are hating? Makes me wonder how yall think sometimes.

i think this post is making me want to vomit:puke:

[whatmeworry]

Better than what started it is what keeps it alive. The insufferable punk-ass fans and the low-life players like Roy Williams. I hate them now as much or more than I've ever hated them.

[REDSKINS HISTORIAN]

As stated earlier, George Allen deserves the most credit for making the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry what it is today. The two teams played some very exciting, high-scoring games in the 1960s, but Allen intensified the rivalry several-fold after coming to the Redskins in 1971. He harbored a disdain for the Cowboys that stemmed from when his Los Angeles Rams scrimmaged Dallas in Southern California in the 1960s and carried it over to his days coaching the Redskins. And he tapped Redskins defensive tackle Diron Talbert as his right-hand man for antagonizing the Cowboys and quarterback Roger Staubach. Talbert said things such as, "Staubach wears skirts" or "Staubach can't read defenses." It was true theater.