Looking back, it’s amusing to think the teams were referring to each other as “old-time rivals” even before the 19th century had ended. Nine hundred fans witnessed a scoreless tie. The Fitchburg Sentinel reported: “Leominster played desperately to keep their home record clean.” At one point in the first half, Fitchburg had the football on Leominster’s 2-foot line but lost it on downs. The 1899 Turkey Day tilt was played at Robbin’s Driving Park, the same field that witnessed the 1894 game and what is today the upper portion of Doyle Field. The Fitchburg Sentinel noted: “Leominster was outclassed in the line and behind it and their gains by rushing (there was no forward pass in football until 1906) were few and not frequent.”Īs the 19th century faded, Leominster and Fitchburg played the ninth game of their young rivalry and their first Thanksgiving game on Leominster soil. Four hundred faithful watched the Fitchburg’s Fred Cross score a pair of touchdowns, four points each in those days, and hold Leominster scoreless. The cross-border rivals played their very first Thanksgiving game at Fitchburg’s Circle Street grounds, the future home of Crocker Field, on Nov. Set a dish of dough large enough for three hungry chickens to eat from then let in five hundred to see them all try for a beakfull, and you can get a good idea of it. “The foot-ball game at the park last Thursday between the married and unmarried boys, drew a large crowd. The report of the game in the Leominster Enterprise is an interesting glimpse of the journalism of the day: Suffice it to say, all of the participants likely worked up a pretty good appetite for turkey and all the fixings that morning. Lost to history are both the victor and the score. On Thanksgiving morning of 1891, a group of Leominster’s young men got together and played a football match pitting the unmarried men against those living in a state of matrimony. The scene of the Leominster-Fitchburg 1894 reenactment game at the Doyle Pasture on Lindell Avenue in October of 2009. It has been that way for a very long time.Įven before the iconic local rivalry was born, football was a part of our local Thanksgiving holiday. A truly American holiday celebrated by the Pilgrims and proclaimed nationally by President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving is a day steeped in tradition.Īt least part of that tradition in Fitchburg and Leominster is high school football. We did, however, realize that Thanksgiving was coming soon. We didn’t know the traditional tune was composed by Lydia Maria Child, or that she was an abolitionist, women’s rights activist, novelist and Medford native. As a youngster, it was this time of year we sang the old classic “Over the River and Through the Woods” in grammar school.

Fitchburg sentinel enterprise newspaper