Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

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Omega
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Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Omega »

On the WV TailgateCentral website, a very highly respected WV high school sports historian made a post regarding both Ironton and Portsmouth having to forfeit games in the 1940's . Do any of our notable Tiger and Trojan posters have memory or information on this?:

"i am currently researching Portsmouth, OH. Seems they got into a pissing match with Ironton in 1944 and started reporting each other's ineligible players. All of Portsmouth's games were forfeited except for the last game with Ashland due to a confirmed ineligible player. Ironton also had to forfeit games but I haven't yet figured out which ones.

So Logan, Huntington East, Stonewall Jackson and Wayne all lost to Portsmouth in 1944. Those games will be reversed. Charleston tied Portsmouth and that will be changed to a win.

Ironton also had to forfeit games and actually had their season terminated by the Ohio governing board. The first mention of this was in the Salem, Ohio newspaper on October 23. This is quite interesting because I am not yet sure which games Ironton had to forfeit if not all of them. They played Huntington so Huntington will most likely pick up a forfeit win. The most interesting aspect is they also played Williamson on October 20. Williamson was voted state champions and this out of state game (which did not count then) was their only defeat. I will try to see if this game was forfeited. The write up in the Ironton yearbook is quite humorous.

"On October 20, high on a mountainside in West Virginia, The Tigers out swam the Williamson Wolfpack to the tune of 6-2. Who said, "Tigers can't swim?" (Here's mud in your eye.) Unfortunately this was the last game for the 1944 as our season was cut short due to the misunderstanding about the eligibility of one of our star players. The Athletic Association at Columbus decided we had enough football under our belts; therefore, our remaining games were cancelled." "

http://www.wvtailgatecentral.com/forum_ ... 0cb062a9f2


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Football Historian »

I am the person that made that post. I traveled to Portsmouth December 23 to the library. I was able to confirm that Portsmouth had to forfeit their first 9 games in 1944 due to an ineligible player. They held him out of the last game vs Ashland and won that game so it was not forfeited. It was determined that it was an oversight and no further penalties were applied.

Ironton also had to forfeit all 1944 games due to INTENTIONALLY using an ineligible player after they had been told he was not eligible. This is why the extra penalty of terminating Ironton's 1944 season was applied.

The 1944 Portsmouth-Ironton game is now one of the very rare double forfeit games.
Last edited by Football Historian on Thu Dec 26, 2019 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Trojan_FB_Alum »

Interesting, so who won the game on the field?
Is this game counted for one or the other in the all time record? Just curious as one of the longest running rivalries, if the record is reflected correctly.

Also curious what the infractions were that made these players ineligible? Wonder why Ironton decided to play the ineligible player anyway? No playoffs at that time, assuming they weren’t going to be crowned state champion by the press, really no penalty for playing said player? Such a different time I find this all very interesting.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Football Historian »

There were two games scheduled between Ironton and Portsmouth in 1944. The first game was a tie 6-6. The second game was not played. My experience is that the persons that do histories only do their own school and they tend to overlook forfeits either on purpose or they are unaware. I did Williamson, WV's history over 5 years ago. There is no mention of the forfeit situation with Ironton in any WV newspaper. Williamson was voted WV champions in 1944 and this makes them undefeated.

I took photos of the articles from the Portsmouth Times. The Ironton one came out a little blurry. It is still readable. The Portsmouth one is totally in focus. I can email them as attachments but they are too large to be allowed on this site.

The Ironton forfeits were caused by a player transferring from St. Joseph on 10-11-1943. Back then you had to sit out exactly one year. He was to be eligible for all athletics at Ironton High 10-11-1944. Even though they knew this Ironton played him in football anyway all season.

Portsmouth's forfeits were caused by a player that did not pass 3 of 4 classes in spring 1943. He failed one class (Woodworking) and received an incomplete in English class. He was given the test for English the test for his grade level the following fall and passed. Portsmouth thought that was sufficient to make him eligible but as it turns out it was not under the rules at that time.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Omega »

Football Historian wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:37 am I am the person that made that post. I traveled to Portsmouth December 23 to the library. I was able to confirm that Portsmouth had to forfeit their first 9 games in 1944 due to an ineligible player. They held him out of the last game vs Ashland and won that game so it was not forfeited. It was determined that it was an oversight and no further penalties were applied.

Ironton also had to forfeit all 1944 games due to INTENTIONALLY using an ineligible player after they had been told he was not eligible. This is why the extra penalty of terminating Ironton's 1944 season was applied.

The 1944 Portsmouth-Ironton game is now one of the very rare double forfeit games.
You and Mr. Forshey do a fabulous job of maintaining historical and current season data for WV high school football. It almost seems when calculating WV playoff standings you guys are more reliable than the WVSSAC itself. Joe Eitel has nothing on you folks. For those interested, the following link will take you to Football Historians data base. I wish something like this existed for Ohio:

http://www.fourseasonsfootball.com


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Football Historian »

BTW. Portsmouth's football history is now posted on my website. http://www.fourseasonsfootball.com/ Click on the WV icon and scroll down to the section that I sat up for Ohio. It is the only one there so far but I am working on Ironton now.

I am sure it is incomplete for several seasons before 1914. I could have made mistakes elsewhere but every score from 1914 up is verified thru a newspaper account of some sort.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by TheFlyingDutchman »

My Dad was in the class of 45 at ISJ, I would like to know who the player was who transferred from ISJ. Dad never mentioned this story before. It sounds like it was a classmate of his.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Football Historian »

Robert Miller, QB


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by loganlocos »

Football Historian -

I would love to talk to you about the "set up" of your website. I will shoot you a PM.

I have large databases of many former SEOAL schools as well as others in SE Ohio. I also have a very detailed spreadsheet of ever Ohio playoff game ever played.

Thanks.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by sapientia et veritas »

Football Historian wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 12:58 pmMy experience is that the persons that do histories only do their own school and they tend to overlook forfeits either on purpose or they are unaware.
Part of that is because the search indexes are incomplete on the websites that have digitized content. When I search newspapers.com or newsbank.com for game outcomes, I get better search results by providing a specific date. I know the games were mostly Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, so I look up scores for papers on the following days. The regular seasons were shorter back then and tended to start and finish later. And the words were different like "grid scores." When researching one season, one article had the head coach as one guy during an early game and another named a different guy later in the season. I ended up having to do a day-by-day search to find the article explaining the change. Just a plain text search on the new coach name or the old coach name for the two month window didn't find anything. The day by day text search did. Sometimes, a specific day search doesn't find anything either, and I have just have to scour all the sports pages. For newspapers that had a morning and a daily, the images of both editions are often combined into a single day. So I look thru AM sports and then PM sports. It's laborious. I do know from my own research that Ironton was well covered by the Columbus Dispatch. Their archives are available online at the Columbus Metropolitan library. I'm doing historical research for Columbus Bishop Hartley, and I get a lot of false positives on articles about the Taft Hartley act. It's a labor of love. Keep up the good work.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Football Historian »

loganlocos wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:06 am Football Historian -

I would love to talk to you about the "set up" of your website. I will shoot you a PM.

I have large databases of many former SEOAL schools as well as others in SE Ohio. I also have a very detailed spreadsheet of ever Ohio playoff game ever played.

Thanks.
I tried to send a reply. Did you get it?


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by YOU'RE TIGER BAIT »

Omega wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:10 pm On the WV TailgateCentral website, a very highly respected WV high school sports historian made a post regarding both Ironton and Portsmouth having to forfeit games in the 1940's . Do any of our notable Tiger and Trojan posters have memory or information on this?:

"i am currently researching Portsmouth, OH. Seems they got into a pissing match with Ironton in 1944 and started reporting each other's ineligible players. All of Portsmouth's games were forfeited except for the last game with Ashland due to a confirmed ineligible player. Ironton also had to forfeit games but I haven't yet figured out which ones.

So Logan, Huntington East, Stonewall Jackson and Wayne all lost to Portsmouth in 1944. Those games will be reversed. Charleston tied Portsmouth and that will be changed to a win.

Ironton also had to forfeit games and actually had their season terminated by the Ohio governing board. The first mention of this was in the Salem, Ohio newspaper on October 23. This is quite interesting because I am not yet sure which games Ironton had to forfeit if not all of them. They played Huntington so Huntington will most likely pick up a forfeit win. The most interesting aspect is they also played Williamson on October 20. Williamson was voted state champions and this out of state game (which did not count then) was their only defeat. I will try to see if this game was forfeited. The write up in the Ironton yearbook is quite humorous.

"On October 20, high on a mountainside in West Virginia, The Tigers out swam the Williamson Wolfpack to the tune of 6-2. Who said, "Tigers can't swim?" (Here's mud in your eye.) Unfortunately this was the last game for the 1944 as our season was cut short due to the misunderstanding about the eligibility of one of our star players. The Athletic Association at Columbus decided we had enough football under our belts; therefore, our remaining games were cancelled." "

http://www.wvtailgatecentral.com/forum_ ... 0cb062a9f2
that is so cool. 1st I ever heard of it. kantucky on here would be your source for this kinda info.


IN THE LONG GRASS BY THE WATER, SO WATCH YOUR STEP. AND LET'S GO IRONTON FIGHTING TIGERS, OHIO STATE BUCKEYES AND THE CINCINNATI BENGALS
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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by YOU'RE TIGER BAIT »

Football Historian wrote: Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:37 am I am the person that made that post. I traveled to Portsmouth December 23 to the library. I was able to confirm that Portsmouth had to forfeit their first 9 games in 1944 due to an ineligible player. They held him out of the last game vs Ashland and won that game so it was not forfeited. It was determined that it was an oversight and no further penalties were applied.

Ironton also had to forfeit all 1944 games due to INTENTIONALLY using an ineligible player after they had been told he was not eligible. This is why the extra penalty of terminating Ironton's 1944 season was applied.

The 1944 Portsmouth-Ironton game is now one of the very rare double forfeit games.
well, there you are. I hadn't seen this when I posted mine.
I love this kinda stuff.


IN THE LONG GRASS BY THE WATER, SO WATCH YOUR STEP. AND LET'S GO IRONTON FIGHTING TIGERS, OHIO STATE BUCKEYES AND THE CINCINNATI BENGALS
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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by loganlocos »

Football Historian wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 1:37 pm
loganlocos wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:06 am Football Historian -

I would love to talk to you about the "set up" of your website. I will shoot you a PM.

I have large databases of many former SEOAL schools as well as others in SE Ohio. I also have a very detailed spreadsheet of ever Ohio playoff game ever played.

Thanks.
I tried to send a reply. Did you get it?
I got it! Hadn’t logged back on til tonight. Will follow up soon. Thanks!


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Crab's Brother »

I love stuff like this.

I spent many hours in the Portsmouth Library doing the research on the complete Valley history. Many of those hours were spent with the late Jesco White. I would give anything for a few more hours of doing that with my buddy.

When he passed, I finished what we started because that would have been what he wanted. I keep it updated as a way to remember Josh.


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by Paulcrew »

I wonder how many rosters may have been depleted by “kids” going off to
the war? Robert Christian, who the Ironton senior athlete award goes to, left for the Pacific after his junior year. You could do that with permission from your family. Mr Christian was killed in battle before his high school class graduated. thank


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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by YOU'RE TIGER BAIT »

I thought the world of ole jesco crab.


IN THE LONG GRASS BY THE WATER, SO WATCH YOUR STEP. AND LET'S GO IRONTON FIGHTING TIGERS, OHIO STATE BUCKEYES AND THE CINCINNATI BENGALS
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Re: Interesting Ancient History Regarding Ironton and Portsmouth Football

Post by YOU'RE TIGER BAIT »

Paulcrew wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 8:37 am I wonder how many rosters may have been depleted by “kids” going off to
the war? Robert Christian, who the Ironton senior athlete award goes to, left for the Pacific after his junior year. You could do that with permission from your family. Mr Christian was killed in battle before his high school class graduated. thank
aw man, that I terrible.


IN THE LONG GRASS BY THE WATER, SO WATCH YOUR STEP. AND LET'S GO IRONTON FIGHTING TIGERS, OHIO STATE BUCKEYES AND THE CINCINNATI BENGALS
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