Bought on Ebay: 1951 Game Program - Orrville vs. Mansfield Madison

Bought this a few weeks ago on Ebay (for a whole penny + $5 shipping)...wanted to wait until the week of the Madison game to post it. That week is this week, so here you go.

I'll show the pictures first and then dissect the minutiae of a 58 year old game program. Sounds fun, right? I thought so....enjoy.

***Each picture can be made full size by clicking on it.***

Thoughts:

1. Interesting how "Red Riders" is in quotes, but Rams isn't.
2. The date of the game is interesting too....the 8pm isn't too weird, but Saturday? Was this common to play high school games on Saturday?
3. Like the photo....assuming just a stock photo like Orrville programs used to have.

Inside Spread

Thoughts:

1. I'm not 100% certain, but I think Coca Cola may have been a sponsor.
2. Pretty cool to see the officials names in print, that doesn't happen anymore.
3. Orrville lost this game 18-12, they finished the season 3-7 and it was the second of 4 straight losing seasons. For what it's worth, we have only had 6 seasons since 1951 where we lost 7 games or more in a season. (1966, 1973, 1974, 1991, 2001, 2002)
4. Carl Stager coached during the 1950 and 1951 seasons. His overall record at OHS was 6-11-2.
5. Interesting how neither team had a player on the roster with a jersey number less than 20, and how a handful of players for each team had no number associated with their name.
6. A lot of familiar names on that Orrville roster.

Back

Thoughts:

1. Not a lot of Orrville centric stuff here, but interesting to see how a few of the schools on the schedules either don't exist, or have been made into middle schools. John Simpson and Appleseed were 2 former high schools within the Mansfield district. Both were demolished in the past 5 years
2. That junior high schedule is interesting. Basically, three Madison feeder schools played each other 2 times each and then had a semi-final game (they did this somehow with 3 teams) and then a championship.

That's it....4 pages to the entire program. Much more like a baseball scorecard than a football program as we know it today. Having to do 5 different programs (for 5 home games) a year with unique rosters for each team had to be quite time consuming and costly...but I like it. Much better than a loose leaf insert that we see today.