Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

As a Jets fan, I do miss going to the Orange Bowl to play Miami, especially in the evening. That place always had this bigtime prize fight feel at night. The stands were dimmed but the lights illuminated the field like a spotlight, and aside from your usual contingent of Jets fans living in Florida (always tons) the Dolphins fans would fill that place up too. It was really the last time they ever had a home field advantage. The Orange Bowl always had an excellent football atmosphere at night...just something about the colors, the sights, the sounds, the banners, the palm trees



Old Cleveland Stadium. Just felt like this old, dingy, incredibly monolithic cauldron of noise. On a crisp sunny autumn/winter day it provided a wonderful football setting



And maybe this is sacrilege, but old Lambeau pre renovations always looked blah to me, was never particularly impressed.

Never cared much for the cookie cutters, but I think Pittsburgh probably did it best with theirs, with Veterans Stadium being the worst (I don't count RFK in the cookie cutter class)

Eagles games at Franklin Field always looked interesting, especially with the giant UPenn building behind one endzone



Metropolitan Stadium seemed so strange with the stands being a million miles away from the field seemingly. It didn't even look like a real stadium, just a bunch of grandstands haphazardly thrown onto a frozen tundra. Everything was just so separate from each other

Lions to me had the best dome "look" and atmosphere.

Nice OP! And great pics to boot! Like that Eagles one at Franklin. Wouldn't mind going back in time and seeing an Eagles game there. Penn in the background made it seem so like the Eagles were an Ivy League team (nice set-up for a late-'60s Eagles joke). Good description about night games at the Orange Bowl from someone who only ever watched on TV. Vikings' old stadium...only saving grace, to me, is that were at least outdoors and that Viking statue; and the legendary grizzled, no-frills, tailgate parties pre-game. But the set-up...and also two teams sharing same sideline? A bit weird but I, and I'm sure most Vikings fans, will take that over indoors any day. How about Lions at Tigers Stadium? Dallas...I take it they had more of a hard-core, less-cosmopolitan, fan presence at the Cotton Bowl, right? And how about Fulton County?

I hate domes. Steelers ever move into one, I may quit following. Maybe the same if Green Bay or Chicago ever do (ABOVE and BEYOND sacrilege).

Very accurate description of games at the OB.

I loved the Kingdome but I think all football should be played on natural grass and outdoors. So I miss all stadiums that used to have grass, and all stadiums that used to be outdoors - for teams that moved to astroturf/fieldturf and/or indoors. Thankfully when Seattle got out of the Kingdome they at least got it half right (was supposed to have grass, too. Then just didn't.) ...

Reaser wrote:Very accurate description of games at the OB.

I loved the Kingdome but I think all football should be played on natural grass and outdoors. ...

And in cold weather (at least below 50) ... and in the daytime.

The Orange Bowl... but not only because of the Dolphins.
Sitting in the Orange Bowl was not always fun. But... two out of three isn't bad...
It was GREAT on New Year's Day in 1975 when Notre Dame upset Alabama 13-11; but,
almost 15 years later, on November 25, 1989, a new bumper sticker was born:
God made the Irish #1
Miami made them #2
as the "Convicts" beat the "Catholics" 27-10
The loss ended an undefeated season but Notre Dame remained #1
and in another New Year's game destroyed Colorado 21-6, also in the Orange Bowl.
---
Harvard Stadium when it was home to the Boston Patriots.
It might have inspired the Ma Bell theme "Reach Out and Touch Someone" - the stands were close enough for players to socialize -
and they did.
An interesting fact is that all American football owes its playing field dimensions to Harvard Stadium.
Way back when, there was movement afoot to widen the playing field similar to the Canadian game.
There was not enough space to widen the field at Harvard Stadium so the idea was scrapped.
Until 2006, the exterior walls were covered with ivy.

Then, of course, there was Fenway...

The Patriots at Fenway Park was also an up-close-and-personal experience.

And, neither last nor least...

Of course, there was never anything better than football at the Polo Grounds.
New York City - the New York Football Giants - and less than 45 minutes from Broadway -
For those who witnessed it, there is a feeling the rest of the world can never know.
After all, the legendary Max Baer said it best "...everything else is just Bridgeport."

Candlestick. For obvious reasons as a 49ers fan.

The old version of Soldier Field before the renovations had those Greek looking columns a lot more visible. (they're still there IINM) Watching the Bears at the height of their 80s powers growing up (and hating them) those columns added a sense of mythical awe. Like they're unbeatable Roman gladiators or something. LOL

Not that I have any memory of the Bills playing there but to go back in time and see a game at the old Rockpile (War Memorial) would have been something. My father was at the first ever Bills playoff game in '63 against the Patriots. We went to a lot of Bisons baseball games there until they moved to Pilot Field in the late 80s. That place REALLY was falling apart in its final days.

Of the cookie-cutters, I miss Busch Memorial Stadium. I love NFL Films clips of long passes flying in front of the roof's arches.

The Brooklyn Dodgers (baseball and football) were a little before my time, but I would have loved to have seen Ebbetts Field.