PRBuzz
10-08-2009, 05:38 AM
There Once Was a Football Game With Nantucket...
Island and Rival Martha's Vineyard Won't Play This Year, Putting Tradition's Future in Doubt
NANTUCKET, Mass. -- For the first time in nearly half a century, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard won't play each other in football this fall. One of the fiercest and most idiosyncratic high-school rivalries in America is suspended because of hard times, missed signals and the encroachment of other sports, with no firm plan to resume.
The two Massachusetts islands have played each other in football at least once a season since 1960. Opposing fans traveled to the host island on a chartered ferry, disgorging passengers at the terminal like spirited invaders. Cheerleaders decorated the route from the ferry dock to the gridiron in either Vineyard purple or Nantucket Whalers navy and white. When the Vineyard won, firetrucks would loudly greet the ferry on its return, their lights swirling and horns blazing. The contest has been chronicled in the pages of the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated.
"It was like the Army-Navy game," said Mr. Capizzo, who retired from coaching last spring after 45 years. "Not playing the Vineyard is like apple pie without the ice cream."
Island and Rival Martha's Vineyard Won't Play This Year, Putting Tradition's Future in Doubt
NANTUCKET, Mass. -- For the first time in nearly half a century, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard won't play each other in football this fall. One of the fiercest and most idiosyncratic high-school rivalries in America is suspended because of hard times, missed signals and the encroachment of other sports, with no firm plan to resume.
The two Massachusetts islands have played each other in football at least once a season since 1960. Opposing fans traveled to the host island on a chartered ferry, disgorging passengers at the terminal like spirited invaders. Cheerleaders decorated the route from the ferry dock to the gridiron in either Vineyard purple or Nantucket Whalers navy and white. When the Vineyard won, firetrucks would loudly greet the ferry on its return, their lights swirling and horns blazing. The contest has been chronicled in the pages of the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated.
"It was like the Army-Navy game," said Mr. Capizzo, who retired from coaching last spring after 45 years. "Not playing the Vineyard is like apple pie without the ice cream."