The London Lords were a professional-amateur

Canadian football Canadian football, or simply football, is a Sports in Canada, sport in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete on a field long and wide, attempting to advance a Ball (gridiron football), pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposi ...

team competing in the

Ontario Rugby Football Union The Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) was an early amateur Canadian football league comprising teams in the Canadian province of Ontario. The ORFU was founded on Saturday, January 6, 1883, and in 1903 it became the first major competition to ado ...

(ORFU), based in

London, Ontario London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...

. They played their home games at Labatt Park. They won the final ORFU Senior championship in 1957, after which pro-am teams were barred from competing for the

Grey Cup The Grey Cup () is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners ...

, which preceded the formation of the fully-professional

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...

a year later in 1958. They subsequently continued to play ORFU Intermediate football for almost two decades afterward, until the league formally folded in 1974.The biggest choke in Canadian history?
The Hamilton Spectator. Steve Milton. 02/11/17. Retrieved: 27/05/18 The Lords were owned by a community group headed by local businessmen Ralph Duffus, Gordon Gilbride, and Ken Lemon, and the team was established with the intention of eventually bringing a

(CFL) team to London. During their existence, the Lords were a farm team for the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division (CFL), East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home game ...

, with the Tiger-Cats having their first refusal on call-up/contracts on any London Lords' player. The 1957 lost final was a particularly crushing disappointment for the Lords. Although entering the 2-way final as the underdogs, having lost both of their regular season games to the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, the Lords stormed the first game 42–6. They also gained an early lead at the return leg, before conceding 48 points in 45 minutes.

Legacy and later developments

In 1974, the same year that the ORFU formally folded, an investment group had reportedly approached the CFL with the intention of establishing an expansion team in London. The CFL was reported to have quoted the group a price of $2,700,000 for an expansion team. It is unknown for what reasons that the expansion bid failed and that the team never began play. In 2011, the London Lords were inducted into the London Sports Hall of Fame. In 2013, the name "London Lords" was adopted by the former London Silverbacks, a semi-professional Canadian football team, competing in

World Minor League Football The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

. This league ceased to operate shortly afterward in 2015.

ORFU Season-By-Season

References

{{reflist Sports clubs and teams in London, Ontario Ontario Rugby Football Union teams Canadian football teams in Ontario Defunct Canadian football teams