Final Standings

	P	W	L	T	PF	PA	Pct
Yarvard Crimson Tide	3	3	0	0	73	6	1.000
Tech Fighting Irish	1	0	1	0	6	19	.000
Hale Blue Devils	2	0	2	0	0	54	.000

Results

Date	Winners		Runners-Up
	Game 1		White City Stadium, London
08.05.1943	Yarvard Crimson Tide	19	Tech Fighting Irish	6
	Game 2		Ninian Park, Cardiff
10.06.1943	Yarvard Crimson Tide	14	Hale Blue Devils	0
	Championship		Eastville Stadium, Bristol
26.06.1943	Yarvard Crimson Tide	40	Hale Blue Devils	0

Report

From 1942-1943 the US Army played a series of American Football matches in Northern Ireland, Wales & England in aid of the Red Cross. Teams were named Tech (Engineering), Hale (Infantry) and Yarvard (Artillery).

Irish and British newspaper readers would have been familiar with reports in the papers of US College Football, and the team names reflect this (Yarvard and Hale are not mis-spellings, but the names reflect the Ivy League Colleges of Harvard and Yale, similarly Tech is a nod to the big American Tech Colleges.

After the ETO Championship in Northern Ireland in 1942, in spring the following year (1943), the European Theater of Operations Championship was organised in England & Wales, with the teams given the nicknames Fighting Irish (Tech – a nod to Notre Dame), Blue Devils (Hale – after Duke University) and Crimson Tide (Yarvard – in honour of Alabama University).

The Crimson Tide won all three matches played in front of the public, attracting crowds of 25,000 (London), 7, 000 (Cardiff), and 6, 000 (Bristol).

References

Bibliography

[1] Foglio, Massimo & Ford, Mark L. (2017) Touchdown in Europe – How American Football Came to the Old Continent. pg. 47-82. Published by the author.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Todd Zboyan, Sondra Maher, Rick Kelley & Tim Leadingham.

About this document

Researched, compiled and written by Enda Mulcahy for the

Eirball | Irish North American and World Sports Archive

Last Updated: 18 July 2020

(c) Copyright Enda Mulcahy and Eirball 2019-2020

You may quote this document in part provided that proper acknowledgement is given to the authors. All Rights Reserved.