The Harvard vs Yale American football game is one of the oldest rivalry games in the sport. The first game was played in 1875, and it has been played annually since 1897.
It is considered by the students of the respective universities as one of the most important days on the calendar (think your University Varsity x10), and is the last game in the Ivy League football season. It’s actually referred to as ‘The Game’.
We all piled on the bus at 9am, and starting drinking straight away (obviously). Beer and champagne – cause we’re classy like that.
It was about a 3 hour trip (mostly because of traffic), but there was some lovely scenery.
Eventually we rolled up to the Yale Bowl, to be met by hundreds upon hundreds of tailgaters. If you don’t know what tail-gating is, you need to learn. It’s one of those things that American’s do that you think – why don’t we do this?! Everyone basically parks outside the stadium and sets up barbecues and bars and has a pre-match party.
The game came around all too quickly for those of us having fun at tailgating, and so we started to make our way into the stadium. Because it was a college game, no alcohol was served, meaning we had to improvise.
Ah the art of hiding beers under your clothing…
The stadium was pretty big, although definitely nothing compared to NFL. We sat in the Harvard section, but mostly because it was too far to walk around to the Yale section.
Look at all those subs…
This guy just fancied a nap instead.
I watched roughly about 4 minutes of football before I decided socialising with Harvard frat boys was more fun.
The candyfloss sunset was pretty nice too.
The Game ended, Harvard won (of course) and we hurried back to the bus to warm our fingers and toes. Although, we couldn’t resist getting on the field at the end and introducing ourselves to some of the players first.
Things I learnt:
- People take the rivalry extremely seriously (I got shouted at and accused of being from Yale)
- Tailgating is the best thing ever
- College football is pretty boring (especially if you don’t know the rules)
- College football players are all absolutely massive, even though they’re about 19
- Everything about the Harvard side was better than Yale (crowd, cheerleaders, band), even though Yale was hosting.
