(12-16-2015 03:11 PM)Gray Avenger Wrote: (12-15-2015 11:47 PM)shere khan Wrote: Bham is a bama town....
There are many thousands of Auburn alumni and sidewalk fans who live in that area who would argue that point, some of whom I have known personally, including kinfolks.
Nope. Wrong on this one GA
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index....on_th.html
Birmingham is an Alabama town, no question about it," Auburn's Housel says. "And it is an Alabama town for two reasons. One is the proximity to Tuscaloosa, and two is the fact Coach Bryant did a great job cultivating Birmingham and making Birmingham an Alabama town -- which is to his credit that he did."
Although the stadium was supposedly split 50-50 when the Tide and Tigers played -- with half the fans wearing orange and blue and the other half dressed in crimson and white -- Auburn fans always felt like they were the visitors at the Iron Bowl, Housel says.
"It was rough for Auburn people to play there in the' 70s," he says. "All of the ushers were wearing Alabama caps and the parking attendants were wearing Alabama caps, the concession people. It was just totally Alabama.
"There is nothing wrong with being an Alabama town, unless you just happen to be on the other side of it."
For decades, Alabama played all of its marquee games - Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, USC, Penn State and Notre Dame among them - not in its smaller on-campus stadium in Tuscaloosa but an hour away in the much larger Legion Field.
Meanwhile, as Auburn expanded Jordan-Hare Stadium, it left Birmingham - first moving the Georgia Tech and Tennessee games to campus before finally getting to play its home game against Alabama at its real home in 1989, an achievement
Auburn's Pat Dye famously likened to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. (Auburn would come back to Legion Field to play one last Iron Bowl as the home team there in 1991.)
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Birmingham Bowl Press Conference
