Top 10 Thanksgiving Day Games
Marblehead vs. Swampscott
SInce 1909, Marblehead and Swampscott have played 112* Thanksgiving Day football games - making this rivalry one of the oldest in Massachusetts. While Marblehead holds a slight overall lead in the series, 56-50-6, Swampscott leads in overall points scored.
Two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts, the 1918 flu pandemic, the 1929 Stock Market Crash, 9/11, and a host of other natural and man-made calamities have come and gone, defining a century, but the annual Thanksgiving Day game has been a constant, as perennial as both the holiday it celebrates and the end of gridiron glory days that is marks.
On the fourth Thursday in November, the two tribes - Swampscott and Marblehead - don their colors and gather in the stands and along the sidelines - parents and familes, alumni and students, past and future players, and fans young and old - to cheer on the local boys and take in the game.
If one looks back through the decades of the rivalry, one sees dynasties that have risen and fallen. Over the past 11 decades lopsided victories, bitter upsets, and fiercely contested battles have been played out and decided on the frost-hardened gridiron on Thanksgiving morning.
Here are 10 memorables ones.
* The 2020 Marblehead-Swampscott game was played in the Spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
 1917 MHS 20-6Edward Pigeon's MHS team breaks a 7 years losing streak with this win over the SHS Sculpins |  1953 MHS 6-0The 6-0 Marblehead win knocks Swampscott out of the NEC Championship |
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 1955 SHS 19-18A late-game MHS come back is cut short by a Swampscott interception - "The Catch" - on the last play of the game |  1961 MHS 35-14A 3-3-1 MHS underdog defeats undefeated Swampscott in the crushing upset |
 1966 MHS 22-21MHS comes back from a 21-6 deficit to win on an end of game 2-point conversion |  1969 SHS 15-14An end of game field goal by Mike Lynch carries the game for Swampscott |
 1973 MHS 20-12Marblehead's win creates a two way tie with Swampscott for the NEC title. Marblehead would not win another NEC title for 35 years. |  1986 MHS 6-0In a snow squall, Marblehead's Ray Forbes hauls in the game winning catch with just 15 seconds on the game clock |
 2006 MHS 6-0A rambling 60-yard fumble return for the only score of the game snaps a MHS five year losing streak |  2009 MHS 32-27In an aerial battle led by Hayes Richardson at newly dedicated Piper Field, MHS puts up 270 passing yards and wins their first NEC title in 36 years. |
 2021 MHS 31-28With 2.7 seconds left on the clock, Eli Feingold kicks the game-winning 37 yd field goal in the “Battle of the Undefeateds”. |
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