Des Moines Knights Kids T-Shirts

Defunct Des Moines Knights Football 1983-1984

The Des Moines Knights were a football team formed in 1983 to compete in the semi-professional Northern States Football League. The Knights played a June-August schedule against semi-pro rivals from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. The Knights were turbulent behind the scenes, cycling through multiple managers and organizers during their first two seasons. Two games into the team’s second season in 1984, Northern States Football League officials seized the nearly bankrupt franchise and awarded it to new owners David Sears and Ray Gamel.3 The new owners immediately modified the name of the team to the “Capitol City Knights” in the middle of the 1984 season.