Falling Off The Edge

End-zone fans as Patriots' Stadium in Foxboro beheld a strange sight last Sunday. The sight was not the Patriots-Bills football game, which was strange enough. Nor was it the Patriots' message board, which advertises everything from the score of the game to Gillette stainless steel blades.

What these fans saw and participated in was nothing less than a popular rebellion against both the New England Power Company and newspaper photographers.

Around the end of the first quarter, a very big yellow truck with "New England Power Company" written on it pulled out in front of the bleachers. Riding on the truck were three people. One of them wore the famous electric company yellow hat, which Boston TV fans have come to know through the ads the electric companies used to run on behalf of their "Big 11 Plus" power project. These ads have since been replaced by messages from Curt Gowdy, formerly our favorite Red Sox announcer in Beantown. These generally consist of Gowdy fishing downstream from a bright, clean electric plant (showing, of course, that the power companies care about fish.)

Man-Holders

The truck was the sort used by electric companies to raise their repairmen to a level with the electric lines. On the back was a large crane-like arm with two black man-holders. In the man-holders stood two photographers with up-to-date Super Zoom cameras.

When the truck first appeared, it was greeted with good-natured booing. But when it stopped in front of the bleachers, however, the fans immediately perceived that the Power Company Newspaper complex was working against their interests: fans sitting in the middle section of the bleachers couldn't see the game through the truck.

At that point, what had been good natured razzing turned into militant opposition. The boos increased in both decibel level and ferocity. Fans began throwing spitballs at the truck and its passengers. Perceiving the threat, the truck made a strategic retreat. The fans had shown their power.

Oppressors Return

Their victory was short lived. Around the middle of the third quarter, the oppressors returned again. This time, the fans knew immediately what was going on. Their booing began just where it had left off in the first half. Moreover, the crowd escalated its tactics. Added to the rain of spitballs and coffee cups and programs were more lethal objects like whiskey bottles and beer cans. One whiskey bottle came flying out of the stands and smashed against the big yellow symbol of obstructed vision.

As the objects began finding their targets (viz., the heads of the photographers), the custodians of Foxboro stadium began taking defensive measures. Policemen appeared in the front of the bleachers and began peering into the crowd. This failed to stop the struggling fans, so the managers of Foxboro pulled out their secret weapon: the net which prevents extra-point kicks from going into the bleachers.

Little did the fans realize that this instrument for their protection would be used against them.

As the bottles and cups came raining down, groundskeepers came onto the field and attempted to raise the net as a protective shield for the truck. The fans would have none of it. Before the net could be raised very far, they grabbed hold of it and started pulling. Policemen tried to keep the fans from breaking the net, but when a policeman went to one end to stop one group of fans holding the net, their brothers and sisters at the other end would grab hold. The net never went up, and the truck retreated.

As a symbol of the fan's victory, the top of the net sagged in the middle the next time it was raised for an extra point kick.

The fans went home happy that night. They had beaten the interests, and the Pats had beaten the Bills.