Crowd size mind-boggling: 18,000 fit into 6,000 spots
Football has never been one of my passions. I find it difficult to keep track of who has the ball, and the difference between a kicker and a punter totally escapes me.
My monumental lack of interest in huge-shouldered males fighting over an oval-shaped ball made it highly unlikely that I'd ever write about anything even remotely connected with gridiron confrontations. I changed my mind when my husband told me about a high school football game that took place in 1938 in Pottsville's Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The opposing teams were Pottsville's Crimson Tide and the Hazleton Mountaineers, both unbeaten. But it wasn't the action on the field that made the game notable (Pottsville lost 30-0); it was the huge number of fans who turned out to see the matchup.
Eighteen thousand people were squeezed into a stadium with a seating capacity (including portable bleachers) of only 6,000. Space was at such a premium that even finding a place to stand was a problem.
The size of the crowd boggled my mind when I wrote the story in 1978. It still does.