You're not an "old" fan unless......

[thomas144]

THAT PLAYER WAS T.E. ART GRAHAM
I THINK IT WAS JOE`S BEST GAME HE EVER PLAYED AGAINST US

I do remember thinking that WOW this guy really is worth a $400,000 signing bonus!

 

[RayClay]

Easy, Ray. I wrote "God bless Billy".

I just like the Walter Brown story a little better in the 'Irish owner with no money but a romantic dream' category.

Billy fought almost insurmountable odds. If people don't think NE is a hotbed of football excitement now, they should have seen it in the 1950's. BC's football greatness ofthe 40's was over and the best local college player EVER took a job on the Red Sox bench before dying tragically. People of that era STILL hate Pat Summerall and the Giants because up until the 1970's the Giants preempted the Pats on local TV every Sunday.

Even in the 70's and early 80's I can still remember Eddie Andelman on the old Sports Huddle program on WHDH on Sunday nights running through the NFL scores blandly and then (with great relish) saying "....and the New York Giants received a VICIOUS beating to the_________ 19-14"

Billy fought an ocean of indifference.

It's all good.

Well it works better if you have Red Auerbach to lean on, though there's a nice article about Holovak on this site.
http://www.footballresearch.com/articles/frpage.cfm?topic=holovak

I am interested in Sullivan. I don't think Walter Brown is interesting. A wonderful guy, but Auerbach was the interesting one.

(Bolded part)-That's what I'm talking about. Thanks.

I really don't want to get into an argument about Sullivan. If you hate him, I respect that. If you want to call him a thief, fine. Whatever makes you happy.

I'm just looking for info.

 

[40yrpatsfan]

Does anybody remember the last game of the 1966 season. Against Joe Namath and the Jets. The Patriots lost 38-28. As I recall, if they had won they would have faced Kansas City for a chance to play in the first superbowl...

The famous play of that game, in which a Patriot was held by his shirt on a breakaway play - if they had used "tear shirts" (remember those?) they might have played in the Superbowl...

That was one of the hardest Patriots losses ever, at least for me. That '66 team was one of my favorites of all time, with Jim Nance in his prime. They would have been in the playoffs but for Joe Willie and Shea Stadium.

Namath was absolutely unconscious that day, throwing perfect bullets 40 yards downfield. Later he wrote that he partied hard the night before, and was so hung over for that game that he couldn't remember a thing about it.

 

[pats60]

In 1966 to 1971 Bob starr did play by play Santos did the color.
The Birmingham game was played against San Diego.
The game here was shown on video tape not live.Chanell 4 showed it
at 11 pm. Red sox was in world serries thats why.
It took 6 months i remeber to get our refunds $18.00

My wife was right i was wrong pats played jets in birmingham.
San diego was in 1966 they switched the game from here to San diego.
Guess I`m getting old

 

[italia44]

My wife was right i was wrong pats played jets in birmingham.
San diego was in 1966 they switched the game from here to San diego.
Guess I`m getting old

The reason why it was the Jets in Birmingham was
Joe Namath played college ball at Alabama and Billy Sullivan
thought it would draw fans to see him play and also decide to build a stadium for the Patriots and he would have moved the team.

 

[thomas144]

That was one of the hardest Patriots losses ever, at least for me. That '66 team was one of my favorites of all time, with Jim Nance in his prime. They would have been in the playoffs but for Joe Willie and Shea Stadium.

Namath was absolutely unconscious that day, throwing perfect bullets 40 yards downfield. Later he wrote that he partied hard the night before, and was so hung over for that game that he couldn't remember a thing about it.

That was, apparently, the year they beat at Buffalo at Fenway Park, only two weeks previously (on December 4, 1966), which up to that point might have been the "biggest" game I was aware of, as a fan.

I found this season results page:

http://www.jt-sw.com/football/pro/results.nsf/Teams/1966-bos

One of the things I remember about that Jets game was a commentator at half-time saying something about how it didn't look like the Patriots could pull it out, because they were trailing by (maybe, I don't remember) 10 points. For some reason I was shocked that that was considered an insurmountable lead.

I just found a box score here:

http://nflhistory.net/linescores/pdf/1966a.pdf

I do remember it being a Saturday game. I remember what room I was in, watching this game.

 

[carolinatony]

My older brother took me to see the Pats play @ Harvard Stadium . it was my first pro football game and I was so excited to go

 

[RayClay]

It has been my understanding that Minnesota was the eight franchise for the New AFL..... and Boston was on the outside, looking in.

At the last minute, Minnesota opted to wait for an NFL franchise instead,which they got a year later, and because of that, Boston, and Billy SUllivan, got the eighth AFL franchise..and I believe the franchise fee, at that time, was a measly $25,000.00. Stock was available at $2.50 a share..and eventually, Sullivan bought it all out from the people who bought in.

I believe the stock was underpriced just as the Celtics stock was. People bought it to support the team that no sane person thought could make it.

For a few shares of stock they had a football team. I don't believe he was accused of doing anything illegal, but I'm not a securities expert.

We seem to have experts on every field, not just football here.

I fault Sullivan for loving football and the team. Once he gained control he could have sold the team or moved it, like Kraft threatened to do.

Maybe we would have been better off had he sold to another owner, I'm not defending him on that.

But for somebody that devoted most of his life trying to keep a franchise without a stadium afloat and who finally found a site, inadequate though it was, to have the sum total be "he's just a thief".....

That just sucks IMO.

Had he been only in it for the money, he had plenty of opportunity to cash out.

Maybe Kraft was totally bluffing about Hartford, are we sure?................

 

[shirtsleeve]

Anyone else go to the first game at Schaeffer Stadium? I was just a yungun' then, I remember the place wasn't done, and I had to pee in the sink (I had to be held up to go). It was my first pro game, and I loved it.

 

[Patriotic]

Anyone else go to the first game at Schaeffer Stadium? I was just a yungun' then, I remember the place wasn't done, and I had to pee in the sink (I had to be held up to go). It was my first pro game, and I loved it.

Didn't go but I remember listening to Gil Santos on WBZ saying there still alot of headlights crawling toward the parking lots in the second quarter.

Pats beat the Giants in that pre-season game as I recall. Remember hearing after the game that the stadium plumbing still needed a little work.

 

[RayClay]

I, always, had respect for Billy Sullivan for what he did for Boston, for Massachusetts and New England, as far as the Patriots went. I met him on a couple of occasions and you could feel his love for the Patriots.

Thanks NEM Two of the more respected posters who mostly post at the other place jumped all over me because I wanted to say anything admiring the tenacity of Sullivan.

In a perfect world somebody with huge moneybags and a pure soul saddles up in Boston in 1960.

But there was no someone. Just one nut crazy enough to ignore the conventional wisdom.

Without Sullivan there is no team in Boston and there is no deal with Foxboro.

Other than that Kraft did everything.

 

[Sean Pa Patriot]

My first Pats game was at Shea Stadium in NY to see the Pats play the Jets in 78, when Leahy missed the FG to lose 19-17 , and Steve Nelson patted him on the head.. I had tickets to 87 scab game between the Bills and Pats , but did not go.. went to pats jets in 87 Grogan had a big day I remember.. 3

 

[RayClay]

Someone asked me tonight, and I thought it was in this thread, but I couldn't find it, what really old Pats stuff I have.

And, truth be told, I dont have very much. I DID have a lot of stuff up until a couple of years ago, all stored away in those plastic tote cartons but had to sell it all off...

As I look back onthe early days, now, in the 60's, I had, at one time, all of the old program books. The ones with the caricatures drawn by Phil Bissel. (*Like this one, for example)

.

Cookie Gilchrist?

I had all those old ticket stubs, and pennants, and schedules.

All from the days of the BOSTON Patriots.

All of it is quite valuable now, on E-Bay.

In 1986, for the two weeks before the super bowl, my house was on a corner turn of Route 27, just outside of Stoughton Center heading towards Brockton.

I made a deal with one of those street sellers, and I set up a Patriots Super Bowl paraphenalia place on my front yard, with T-shirts, sweat-shirts, pennants, buttons, pins, Super Bowl Program Books, etc...and I got a percentage of the sales.

It was a fun filled two weeks before Super Bowl XX.

And, just a few days before the game I went out and bought a brand new 40 inch tv (big in those days) for our Super Bowl party.

I wish I still had some of that old stuff, not so much for the money, but moreso for the memories.

Now, I have about 40 different hats, maybe 50, or more different t-shirts, jackets, game jerseys, and other stuff, but most of it I sold off, because I had to at that particular time.

There were lots of memories in that stuff, but now, now its just being a part of the greatest and most enjoyable times of my life as a Patriot fan, because for once, and it took long enough, WE ARE THE TEAM THAT FANS OF ALL THE OTHER TEAMS WANT TO BE LIKE..... It was a long time coming, and just to think of all those years, brings tears to my eyes.


Some of you may think I am crazy to have so much emotion for a "football team" that isnt even mine...and maybe you are right...but that is how I am, and how I will be till my last breath. And, my wife has said, that when that day comes, my ashes will be dropped from the sky over the land that Foxboro Stadium once stood.

I really wish that I ad the patience, and the time to writea book.... but It will never happen.

................................

 

[IcyPatriot]

With all due respect to all Patriot's fans ...

You are not a 'baptized' Patriots fan unless you watched
a December home game at Sullivan Stadium with no more
than a program between your butt cheeks and the aluminum bench.

 

[Patriotic]

With all due respect to all Patriot's fans ...

You are not a 'baptized' Patriots fan unless you watched
a December home game at Sullivan Stadium with no more
than a program between your butt cheeks and the aluminum bench.

Sitting naked in a stadium in December with a program up your butt is a baptism I'll pass on.

P S Hope the Pats won. Were they playing the Bares??

 

[Patriotic]

I remember a game at Rich Stadium in Buffalo that me and three friends went up to. It was early in the season and I was operating a pro shop out at the old Crossroads Arena in West Bridgewater, and I took four white Hockey jerseys, with red trim, and screen printed the Patriots helmet on the front.

When we got there, we had front row seats at about the 15 yard line.

We were standing up and doing a lot of cheering. In fact, we made the Pats year end highlight film, probably because of our matching shirts.

Anyway, the Pats were 5-0 going into the game. I cant remember the year, and if I remember correctly, Jim Plunkett was the QB. Anyway, the Bills beat us, and OJ Simpson was the star of the day...and I remember on one of his long TD runs, he passed right in front of us on his way to the end zone and gave us the finger.

That was 1974. We started out 6 and 1 and ended 7 and 7.

Speaking of O J, I was at the 1976 home game that he and Mel Lunsford were thrown out of.

 

[RayClay]

I remember a game at Rich Stadium in Buffalo that me and three friends went up to. It was early in the season and I was operating a pro shop out at the old Crossroads Arena in West Bridgewater, and I took four white Hockey jerseys, with red trim, and screen printed the Patriots helmet on the front.

When we got there, we had front row seats at about the 15 yard line.

We were standing up and doing a lot of cheering. In fact, we made the Pats year end highlight film, probably because of our matching shirts.

Anyway, the Pats were 5-0 going into the game. I cant remember the year, and if I remember correctly, Jim Plunkett was the QB. Anyway, the Bills beat us, and OJ Simpson was the star of the day...and I remember on one of his long TD runs, he passed right in front of us on his way to the end zone and gave us the finger.

You should have shot him. Done the world a favor.

One of the all time greats, though. Along with our Corey. It's not all about having a long career.

You know that O.J. and Dillon are the only running backs to have 2 games of over 245 Yds. rushing.

 

[Patriotic]

You know that O.J. and Dillon are the only running backs to have 2 games of over 245 Yds. rushing.

And did you know O J and Ray Lewis are the only NFL players to . . . to . . . to . . . gasp . . .

 

[RayClay]

No, I didnt know that. Maybe Corey and Laurence can combine for that in our playoff game next week. Would be nice.

Coreys 278 yard record, (at the time), game used to be on youtube. Unbelievable.

Of course I love Laurence. Hard to say who he resembles. Maybe Eric ****erson, but not as tall.

 

[RayClay]

And did you know O J and Ray Lewis are the only NFL players to . . . to . . . to . . . gasp . . .

Your thinking of Rae Carruth. I don't think Ray's believed to have actually done the deed.