Your Favorite Richmond / W&M Game

[mojo-spider]

the first very vague memories of football games were UR/W&M in the late 50's...seems like they were on Thanksgiving Day for a few years...can only remember the red v. green...

I have two favorites: 1971 at Cary Field and 2009 at City Stadium...

1971...Spiders playing for Southern Conference Championship and spot in the Tangerine Bowl...my father (also a UR alum) said he would give me the money to go to a Spider Bowl game if we made it...at this time there were still Virginia country boys going to UR...

my fraternity had a young man who's family farmed in Cumberland...he got his dad's hay truck for the ride to W-burg for the game...about 20 of us piled into the back of the truck for the ride down Rt. 60 to W-burg...things got real crazy on the way down...driving the hay truck around the W&M campus to park before the game was interesting...

the game was very tight all the way...we were seated in the bleachers in one of the end zones...the Spiders were leading 21-19 when the Indians mounted their last drive...they were driving right towards us in the end zone...they made it into FG range and kicked it...some brothers claimed they saw two footballs flying towards us...apparently the real football was just outside the upright....FG no good!...the Spiders were Southern Conference Champs and headed for Orlando...

delirium ensued...I will never forget driving that hay truck around the W&M campus after the game...we were as obnoxious as UR winners could possibly be...poor sportsmen too...it's lucky we weren't beaten, or arrested...everyone nearly froze to death in the dark on the drive back to RVA...but I can remember getting on Broad Street around MCV and taking it all the way back to the west end...the Tangerine Bowl was anti climatic after this unforgettable experience...

38 years later....

2009...the final game at City Stadium...our great team, defending National Champs...a defensive struggle the entire game...one of the hardest fought football games I have ever seen, with one of the most unexpected endings I have ever enjoyed...all in the final game at City Stadium...

You may find this old and amateur video clip of the ending entertaining...


This year's game is probably the most important game ever played at The Brick House...maybe it will earn its place on Spiders fan's lists...

Go Spiders!

 

[PASpiderDad]

Thanks for sharing, Mojo!

 

[Wood Hall]

In person: At W&M in 1973. We destroyed them.

As a fan from afar: Learning we won the 2009 game while tailgating in Pullman, Wash., before an OSU-Wazzu game.

 

[WebSpinner]

as a kid on thanksgiving day, late 50s, my brother's senior year, team captain, last game, catches td pass and SPIDS win a close one.

 

[Stork3]

I'm all in for the '71 game. Exciting from beginning to end.

 

[Stonewall D]

If UR wins this weekend, this will my favorite. I hope we are not too tight to win this game.

 

[SpiderRick]

Don't remember the year (69?), but all I remember was it was in Williamsburg, and Barty Smith taking a swing pass, heading to the enzone, and absolutely crushing the Indian safety that was dumb enough to try and stop him. And scoring

 

[WebSpinner]

Rick, do know that in 73, a backfield of Barty, 6'3" 240 and John Palazeti, 6'1" 225, ran off over the indians, 31-0. not too many years ago was talking to a VP at our company and knew he played DB for the indians and he told me that in that game, he and every other DB were attempting to get out their way, no matter who was running the sweep or leading the sweep, they just wanted to avoid them.

 

[Stonewall D]

Yes, Barty Smith was a great one, maybe the greatest at UR.

 

[Rivercup]

Rick, Had to be after '69 as Barty didn't enroll until '70 and played freshman ball that year. He was a year behind me and I enrolled in '69.

 

[urfan1]

Yes, Barty graduated in '74 same year I did. I got to know him in HS and carried over to UR. Played on same intramural teams at times, he was a beast at most anything he did. Good guy too!

 

[thirtyyearspider]

I was in the same year. Remember sometime prior to reaching the required full service drinking age of going into the Hitching Post where Barty was behind the bar. I ordered a beer (was the time of 3.2 beer). He poured the draft and then said, "You're legal. Right?" My reply (not wanting him to waste the beer and get, shall we say, peeved at me) was, "Of course, Barty."

I think the 1973 game at Williamsburg was one of my favorite games in many years of watching Spider football. Ranks just behind Chattanooga and not by much.

"I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older." - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne; Essays; Book III, Chapter 2

 

[Wood Hall]

I think Bobby Allen was on that 1973 team too, a fast guy from DC who could really run but couldn't ever seem to stay healthy for a whole season.

What I really remember about the 1973 game was a classmate taking a header off the end-zone bleachers and landing in a pile, somehow uninjured. And staggering out onto the field after the game to connect with a friend from my hometown who went to W&M. We went over to his frat house and continued the party.

 

[spiderbacker]

Mojo-Spider - Terrific Post!!!

 

[Eight Legger]

2008 was a pretty damn good one too. We had to have it in order to make the playoffs, got out to a big lead, they tied it, we went to OT and won, then didn't stop winning.

 

[MolivaManiac]

It's hard to pick a favorite but 2000 would be up there for me. Ryan Tolhurst scored a late TD to win us the conference title.

 

[urfan1]

Any Spider win!

 

[mojo-spider]

2015 just became one of my favorite UR/W&M games!!!!

congrats to the players and coaches for an impressive win over the Indians...it looks like Coach Rocco may have Coach Laycock's number...

what a great afternoon....

on to the Playoffs!!!!

Go Spiders!