The long wait is finally over for football fans across southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia.
More than a dozen local high school teams will hit the gridiron tonight. Highlighting tonight’s 12-game schedule is the 84th meeting between the Bluefield Beavers and the Graham G-Men. Thousands of fans will once again crowd Mitchell Stadium this evening for this historic rivalry between the two Bluefield teams.
Kickoff is slated for 7:30 p.m. at Mitchell Stadium — a venue that’s been around for more than 71 years. The historic stadium will once again be filled to capacity with more than 10,000 fans tonight. Many of the seats will be filled with folks well before the opening kick. While there are some new rules this year regulating tailgating parties at city park, we don’t think the changes will stand in the way of anyone having fun tonight.
The Beaver-Graham contest is the biggest and most anticipated game of the year. It marks the official kickoff of football season in the two Virginias. However, it’s not the only big contest of the night.
History will also be made this evening in McDowell County during the first gridiron meeting between the River View Raiders of the new River View High School in Bradshaw and the Golden Knights of Mount View High School in Welch. The game will be played at the Mount View football field in Welch because the new River View stadium is still under construction. At the moment, it looks like the new stadium in Bradshaw won’t be ready until next season.
The new River View Raiders are, of course, made up of the former Big Creek Owls and Iaeger Cubs. The first meeting of these two high schools should make for a great night of football in McDowell County.
However, other big games are also on tap tonight across southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. In fact, 17 of the 19 area schools will be in action. Richlands will travel to Gate City, Narrows visits James Monroe, Princeton hosts Spring Valley, PikeView entertains Summers County at Concord University, Bland County will travel to Patrick Henry-Glade Spring and Tazewell travels to George Wythe. Montcalm, which had been slated to open this week with Meadow Bridge, moved that game to Oct. 8, while Haysi won’t play until Sept. 3 at Dickenson County rival Clintwood.
So if you are a fan of high school football, there won’t be any shortage of games to enjoy tonight.
Football Friday is finally here. It’s time to kickoff another season of high school football in Four Seasons Country.
No matter who wins or loses tonight, every football fan in our region will be a winner with more than a dozen great games to choose from. Enjoy.
Editorials
August 27, 2010
Football Friday: No shortage of games for local fans
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