Patriots wandered many roads to find path to glory (Reuters) - The New England Patriots will head to the Super Bowl as the most successful NFL team of the past decade but the proud franchise began life flitting from home to home in a city that was at first a tough place for a professional football organisation. The Patriots started life in November 1959 when a consortium of Massachusetts businessmen led by Billy Sullivan Jr were granted a franchise in the old American Football League (AFL). The Boston Patriots were by no means guaranteed survival, given that the city had not seen a major league football franchise since the Boston Yanks, who played in the NFL from 1944-48. Prior to the Yanks, the city had a series of short-lived teams - the Bears, the Braves, who became the Boston Redskins and moved to Washington D.C, the Shamrocks and the Bulldogs. Unlike their predecessors, the Patriots were at least joining a stable and well-financed league with eight teams. The problem, however, was the lack of a regular home base, forcing the team to use four different venues during the decade before the leagues merged, including the Boston Red Sox's Fenway Park baseball stadium. Given their history, it was not surprising that the Patriots found it tough to secure a home, and when they took the field for the first time in 1960, it was at the less-than-ideal University of Boston's ground. The decade in the AFL brought just one championship game appearance for the Pats but that was one to forget, when they fell to a 51-10 defeat to the San Diego Chargers after the 1963 campaign. The Patriots can claim, however, the AFL's all-time high scorer, with 1,100 points, in kickers and wide-receiver Gino Cappelletti and the era also featured Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti. The AFL-NFL merger marked a turning point off the field - the team moved to a new, purpose-built stadium at Foxborough and adopted the name New England Patriots to acknowledge their move out to the region. Success remained elusive though and it took until the late 1970s before New England became real challengers with their maiden NFL playoff game arriving in 1976, a first round loss to eventual champions Oakland. The first Super Bowl appearance took place after the 1985 season where the Patriots, featuring Hall of Fame linebacker Andre Tippett, came up against Mike Ditka's formidable Chicago Bears team and were crushed 46-10. It was to be another 11 years before the Patriots returned to the Super Bowl and in that time the franchise underwent some turbulent changes of ownership. Sullivan sold the club to entrepreneur Victor Kiam, of Remington shaver fame, but four years later, the franchise was in the hands of James Orthwein, whose brief reign was marked by fears he intended to move the team to his hometown of St Louis. Massachusetts magnate and season ticket holder Robert Kraft, who had gained ownership of the stadium, stepped in and bought the club in 1994 in a move which energized the fan base, as they sold out every home game for the first time in team history. Kraft's intervention could be regarded as the start of the Patriots' rise to the pinnacle of the league. Coach Bill Parcells, whose hiring was Orthwein's greatest contribution to the franchise, took the team, by now wearing blue rather than red, to the Super Bowl in 1996, where they lost to Brett Favre's Green Bay Packers. Then with the arrival of head coach Bill Belichick in 2000, the Patriots went from contenders to champions, clinching their first ever Super Bowl after the 2001 season with a victory over the St Louis Rams. The quarterback behind that win was a sixth round draft pick Tom Brady, who had taken over from injured starter Drew Bledsoe in week three and never looked back. The victory was the first of three in four memorable years but after the 2007 defeat to the New York Giants, their opponents in Indianapolis on February 5, Belichick and Brady have plenty of motivation for getting their fourth ring.