I remember back in the late 1960s or probably early 1970s Mount Airy & North Surry played these 2 in the 1st round of the playoffs, Mount Airy vs Tuscola & North Surry vs Pisgah. The weather was rather nice here but we all took coats and quilts because they said it would be cold in Waynesville. Mount Airy & North Surry lost but that was the coldest football game I have ever been to. The field was iced over in places and Tuscola had a guy I think they called Pig Bryant and every we thought MA had stopped him he would slip through like trying to catch a wet muddy pig. That told us how he got his nickname and he was slippery ! Those bleachers were like setting on a block of ice. I can't remember ever playing them again but MA has played Pisgah a time or two. Lost to them the 1st game this spring 28-21 seems we played and beat them there in the 1990s. Could be wrong.
Pisgah did play MA in the spring. I was hoping that game would be played at least one more time in Canton.
It's worth watching at least once in a lifetime for sure.
Murphy - Andrews is a one sided series but it's a big deal for Andrews and would be a more important series for Murphy it were more competitive.
That was in 72 the running back was Pig Bryson .Pisgah and Tuscola played the next week in Canton and Tuscola beat us for the first time in history.What really hurt was we had beat them in regular season.Tuscola played Sandford the next week for the Western district championship and tied 14-14.That was before we had overtime.
Watched Avery 7on7 the other night they look horrible, Madison might beat them this year
Tuscola played Sanford for the State 3A championship, not the Western district. The last year of East and West state champs ended after the 1971 season. Overtime came in 1976, if I recall correctly.
I was a kid at the time. Youth football age when he said this....but I can remember Kenny Ford being interviewed by Stan sub par Pamfillis after they played the Rockets one Friday night during a time period which I think we were in Desert Storm possibly? Could be wrong, but KF actually said on news 13 that he hated ACR so bad that he would pull for Iraq if they played the Rockets!! 🤣🤣😂😂 He was jk but then at the same time you could tell he also meant every word he said!! I think it was after a 30 plus point loss to the Rockets too though so that didn't help matters I'm sure....lmao. Great guy tho IMHO and he loved those boys and everything about the Valley for sure!! Legend! No shirt OG!!! Lol. But back to the topic....yes, was one helluva good rivalry at one time!! 👌
Also, to your last point of being a mismatch now vs then.....I assure you it was a mismatch the entire time from the 70s to present based on numbers and overall athletic ability but that didn't mean squat to KF or those Warhorses! The man could literally suck every last bit of talent, heart and grit out of those kids for 4 solid quarters year after year! They would hit you in the mouth and he built that program ground up IMHO to be bust you in the mouth football and they played their style well!! Se years they could put 15 or 16 kids on a team and beat the brakes off of teams that had 50 plus....taking the whole 50 yards just to stretch before the games but week after week, the man showed all of WNC he could beat you with 11 man eating savages at a time and you had to bring 3 busses to get everyone there and a uhaul sized truck just for pads!! Then look at the scoreboard at double zeros posting Owen 68 XYZ 3 😁 good shit! Mtn football at its best! Very Pisgahesque and I'm afraid the Mill Town Boys and maybe Mtn Heritage, Mitchell and definitely still Robbinsville are all thats left in these here hills! I'm sure I missed one or two on the short list but as a rule of thumb.....that's who still plays true grit gridiron 🏈 Cheers to a little Reminiscing boys! 🍻
Yeah, I played for Kenny, and had the pleasure of coaching on his staff for 10 years. Still associate with him now. Love him like a father. Those were the good days of Owen football. I still help out some now, but mainly work with the youth league now, to try and help football alive. I know coming up, my group of seniors only lost to Reynolds like 1 time. I think the 4 years I was in school we went like 40-5, and that was 2 undefeated seasons on JV and 2 years of going to the 3rd round of playoffs. Man, those were good times. Like you said, a lot of those games we weren't better athletic wise, but we were more physical.
Winner got a little over $11k this year I don't what side they were on but if your team lost that should would take a lot of sting out of it😅
We had more fans before the half and half than Mitchell/Heritage has ever had. We have also had some really great games including last Friday that people will be talking about for years to come.
No one is going to complete with the Pisgah/Tuscola crowd size and definitely not the 50/50 and that did look a really good game. But you got to remember that Haywood has around 27,000 more people then Mitchell and Yancey combined and if you look at from a percentage the P/T game averages about 15,000 people that's 25% of the population while I don't think the was as big this year the last game at MH was between 7,500 to 8,000 that's 23 to 24% of the two counties population the woman told me at that game when I brought my ticket there was 4,000 from Mitchell county that's 27% of Mitchell's population.
Didn't end in 1968 for 3A because Mount Airy won the 1968 western Championship and I think they played and lost the 1969 Western Championship. Mount Airy's 1968 was coach was Alex Gibbs and 1969 coach was when coach Jerry Hollingsworth took over and coached over 22 seasons from 1969-90. His career-winning percentage was 71.37%..
Not that I want to lose to them but I would like to see Avery more competitive again. As good as these rivalries are not sure they match up to the old Bowman/ Harris my dad was at the game when they had such a bad fight break out that the state ban them for playing for two years.
Avery desperately needs coaching from middle school up I think that is there problem
No fault of ours that people prefer us. Something makes'em come.
It's probably the beautiful aroma from the paper plant that attracts them.
