Old school celebration for football rivals
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By Jay Gearan CORRESPONDENT

LEOMINSTER: At noon on Saturday, Oct. 24, the quiet pasture on
Leominster’s Doyle Field Reservation will come alive when two teams of
young men face off in a competitive re-creation of the first football
game between Leominster High and Fitchburg High.

"We’re reenacting what is the consensus to be the very first
Leominster and Fitchburg High football game back in 1894," said
Mark C. Bodanza, the author of "A Game That Forged Rivals," a
history of one of the longest schoolboy rivalries in the nation.

The event, sponsored by the Leominster Historical Society and hosted
by the Trustees of Reservations, will commemorate the 115th
anniversary of the first contest. The game will be played according to
19th-century football rules and players and officials will wear period
attire.

Rather than at Doyle Field, where Leominster currently plays its
football games, the reenactment game will take place on the Doyle
Estate Pasture, 245 Lindell Avenue, Leominster.

Said Bodanza, "The Doyle Estate is the former home of Bernard
Doyle, who is the benefactor of Doyle Field. We already have the
goalposts, flagpole and scoreboard up."

Bodanza, mainly by word of mouth beginning a year ago, has recruited
coaches and players for the commemorative game.

"The game will be vastly different from modern football," said
Bodanza, stressing one of the major 19th-century rules. "You get
three downs to make five yards or you lose 20. That means if you don’t
convert on third down, you either go backward 20 yards and keep the
ball with a fresh set of downs, or you forfeit the ball over to the
defense."

Bodanza added, "The football we’ll use will be rounded, looking
more melon-shaped rather than the pointed-end type of ball used
today. And there’s virtually no equipment. The players will wear
mouthpieces though."

The players will not be of high school age. "They are all in the
mid-20s range," Bodanza said.

Other interesting aspects of the game include: A field that is 110
yards long and 160 feet wide with stripes every five yards and the
goal posts located on the goal line; no forward passes will be
permitted; neither quarterback nor center can run with the ball before
it is touched by another player.

"Try a goal" is a kick after the touchdown with a 2-point
value. If the kick is successful, the scoring team receives the
ensuing kickoff. If the "try at goal" fails, the scoring team
kicks off.

A field goal, with a 5-point value, results when the ball is kicked
from the ground, rolled or drop-kicked between the goal posts or
directly over a goal post.

A touchdown is scored when a player carries the ball across the
opponent’s goal, touches it down, and cries, "Down." The point
value for a touchdown is 4 points Advance tickets for the game are
currently on sale. For more information about tickets, Bodanza’s book,
and the event, visit www.forgingrivals.com

"My book actually started off as a program for this game, and then
it just grew," said Bodanza, whose book is available at Barnes &
Noble, the Leominster Historical Society and online at Amazon.com.

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