What is the first Giants game you remember seeing?

Exhibition game at Schoellkopf Field, Ithaca. Giants lost to the Redskins, 27-24. Got hooked anyway. I was 6 years old. Had no idea I was getting in right at the start of the lean years.

First time I ever sat down to watch a game with my father, my now brother-in-law, and a bunch of other Giants fans.

Missed most of the Super Bowl a week later, but I was definitely there for wide-right. Started watching every game that fall.

Now, 25 years in, still haven't seen a game live. Maybe one day if LA gets a team again.

1967. I was 15. Old Yankee Stadium . Giants got buried. Still remember the cold clear day

Day vs Detroit in 1982. My whole extended family huddled around one of those old console TV's at my cousins house going crazy when LT returned the pick 6.

I had seen games before then, but that was my first real memory.

The Giants were 0-5 and the Bucs were 5-0. Billy Taylor rushed for 140 yards and the Giants won. They went on to win their next 3 games and then had a HUGE game against Dallas. They had a shot to get to 5-5 and really launch the season.

They were beating Dallas 14-13 or something like that late. Les than two minutes, George Martin had a huge sack of Staubach. It was either 3rd or 4th and 16 and fucking Staubach hit Drew Pearson for a back-breaking first down. Eferen Herrera then hit something like a 40-yarder to win the game 16-14.

One of those games that still hurts.

were listening to games on the radio in the 50's. All home games were blocked out. We had a pink radio and we were huddled around kitchen table listening to the game.

Because the games were blocked out my I remember going to a motel outside the blocked out area and watching the game with my father and uncles. Early tailgate... my mother packed us a lunch with sandwiches and fried chicken. I'm sure there was lots of beer! Probably Ballentine or Rhingold! WHOA!

My first game was 1968 against the Eagles in Yankee Stadium. My brother got tickets from his boss. Our seats were field level behind 3rd base. We were so low we couldn't see anything because the players were standing and blocked everything. We didn't have enough sense to go stand someplace higher. They would have been great seats if the Yankees were playing! Bobby Duhon ran back a punt for a TD.

Went a few games at the Yale Bowl. Tickets were easy to come by. Paid a couple bucks because people were just trying to get rid of them.

Got season tickets the year the were in Shea. My wife (girlfriend at the time)called the Giants ticket office seeing if we could get tickets. Gave them a sob story about how we were buying tickets from a season ticket holder for 2 years while they were playing in Yale, and now that they were back in NY, he wanted his tickets back. Finally, after talking to a supervisor, she succeeded. We were so high up, as planes were making their approach to LaGuardia, you could see the people through the windows on the plane!

They weren't guarenteed we would get them again, but the next year the bill came in the mail and I've had them since. Ticket price was $9, and you didn't have to buy exhibition (that's what preseason games were called then) games. So the cost for a season ticket for 8 games was $72. Today my ticket for 1 game is $130.

They called it the best game ever played. I was a Colts fan because of John Unitas but I loved the Yankees. A football team that played at Yankee Stadium was facsinating to me at such a young age. After that game I became a Giants fan.

First memory of football, actually.

Like so many others here, a bonding memory with my dad. Not exactly the question OP asked about whether the franchise felt the same or not, but it's been 39 years since dad passed, and I still feel our connection based on shared love of the New York Giants.

In comment 12538060 wgenesis123 said:

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They called it the best game ever played. I was a Colts fan because of John Unitas but I loved the Yankees. A football team that played at Yankee Stadium was facsinating to me at such a young age. After that game I became a Giants fan.

this is the winner...

First NFL game ever in the Meadowlands.

Giants got it handed to them by Staubach and the 'boys but my Dad finally got season's tickets and I was hooked forever...

Armstead ends the game with a pick 6 in OT

The story line was right out of 2015: The Giants blew a two-touchdown fourth-quarter lead, and it looked for all the world as though the game and the season were going down the tubes. Then Jurgensen threw a pick around midfield and Duhon had a long run to set up a Gogolak chip shot. Washington got back into Giants territory with time running out, and lined up for a long, game-tying field goal. They faked it, unsuccessfully, and the Giants kept their playoff hopes alive until the miserable season finale against the Rams.

After that season, George Allen took over the Redskins and beat the Giants about eleven straight times.

I was six years old, but I remember that game so vividly. I watched it with my father, uncle & 2 cousins, everyone pulling hard for the Giants. Everyone was disgusted watching Namath limp into the endzone on the bootleg for the winning score.

That game was a singular event for me though. I only watched football on and off casually the next few years. My true fandom didn't start until 1979.

In comment 12538063 Jimmy Googs said:

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First NFL game ever in the Meadowlands. Giants got it handed to them by Staubach and the 'boys but my Dad finally got season's tickets and I was hooked forever...

Same as mine. My dad got tickets from work. He got a few others that year, but people figured out that they could use the tickets to get to the luxury box. Remember it was as windy as hell that day and we sat near the very top of the stadium in the end zone.

We were going to the hospital to see my grandfather. The first time I cared about a football game.

September 20, 1964. Bet you could never tell by my handle.

I can't remember specific games but I remember watching games w/ Dad in 1980 (I was 7) and being somewhat perplexed by how emotional he was about it. Now my kids look at me the same way.

what I had for dinner last night, and you want me to remember my first game?

In comment 12538072 truebluelarry said:

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I was six years old, but I remember that game so vividly. I watched it with my father, uncle & 2 cousins, everyone pulling hard for the Giants. Everyone was disgusted watching Namath limp into the endzone on the bootleg for the winning score. That game was a singular event for me though. I only watched football on and off casually the next few years. My true fandom didn't start until 1979.

lol was Fewell coaching the defense that day?

Every Sunday afternoon in the fall, the only TV in the house belonged to my dad. Between that and the Sunday blue laws, we had no choice but to watch. And now we're all fans!

So no, I wouldn't remember. And frankly, those '70s teams--nothing to remember there.

I remember listening to the game on a transistor radio in the schoolyard with friends and disappointed as only a 10 year old sports fan could be

Summerall kicked a 49 yard field goal to win it

Simms was on fire and I was hooked. If memory serves I think they lost eight straight after this win.

But I remember seeing a Steelers game with my Dad. Must've been 1961. But the vivid memory is of the championship game vs. the Packers in ?'61; ?62. Coldest day I can ever remember the wind was awful, my feet were frozen. And they couldn't stop goddam Jim Taylor is the way I remember it. I believe 16-9 was the final score, not sure why. I think that's the year Gifford missed the entire season but they had Kyle Rote, Del Shofner and Jim Morrison playing what they used to call flankerback. Pretty good set of skill guys. But I might be mixing up 2 different seasons. But I'll never forget the cold mostly.

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Redskin's at the Meadowlands, senior in HS.

it was the Deion Sanders Show, Sept 1998 on MNF.

One of those hand held radios that we used to take to school to listen to the World Series when they still played day games.
Wow I want one of those radios, will have to look for one at antique shows and yard sales next spring.

solid memories kicked in late '81 with the win over the Cowboys, and the playoff loss to SF.

Literally as far back as my memory goes I have watched the Giants. Since my dad was a big fan any time he was watching I used to sit on his lap and watch with him.

Over time I have concluded either 1963 or 1964 is likely when my earliest memories of the Giants go back to because I have some memories of Tittle and Gifford.

1973 vs. Redskins.

Giants lost 33-3.

Dad taught me an important chant I repeat now at all the games I attend.

Yay, Yay, Y, A!

was Super Bowl XXI with my pop. Not a bad way to start.

December 6, 1959. Standing room only. Gates open at 10 a.m. and you run as fast as you can to get a good spot on the upper deck rail behind all the seats at the old Yankee Stadium. Stand there from 10-4.

Giants rout the Browns 48-7. I think Bobby Mitchell scored the only Browns touchdown on a kick return.

against the Bears was the first I remember watching. 1970 exhibition game against the Jets at Yale Bowl first I attended live.

Robustelli, Katkavage, Huff, and company trying to tackle Jim Brown. I was too young at the time, but thanks to the internet I can go back and see Brown had 134 yards that day. All I remember is Jimmy would get hit about 6 times on every run with defenders just falling aside. Sometimes the best way to get Brown down were the defensive backs that held onto his ankles, but man did they take a beating doing it. Players were not as big back then and Jimmy Brown was big.

Watched with my Dad and older brothers. I kept saying the game was over and they kept telling me I had no idea what it meant to root for the Giants. After the fumble my father turned to me and said "Now you are a real Giants fan!"

In comment 12538254 Shirk130 said:

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Watched with my Dad and older brothers. I kept saying the game was over and they kept telling me I had no idea what it meant to root for the Giants. After the fumble my father turned to me and said "Now you are a real Giants fan!"

LOL, this was mine as well. If ever a young kid was going to bail on a team, that was the opportunity. Stuck with it, and glad I did. That was the first televised Giants game I saw; the first game at Giants Stadium I ever attended was the 9/7/98 game against the Skins where Strahan had a 24 yard INT return for a TD.

The first Giant game i went to was in 1959, Giants vs Steelers. Giants won 14-9. I think it was $3 or $3.50 and we sat in the bleachers which was on the 40 yard line.

Kansas City Chiefs 21 at New York Giants 35
Saturday, December 19, 1992

My grandma asked me if I wanted to watch the game and I said I would after I was done playing outside. Turns out I missed the entire game...I did catch a glimpse of the game though. I do remember my aunt being such a huge fan of Lawrence Taylor. I was 5 at the time.

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I came home from playing sandlot tackle football with other neighborhood kids to find my dad watching the New York Football GIANTS playing on TV. It was on our old Westinghouse black and white TV set.

This was my introduction to pro football, something previously completely unknown to me. They were the New York Football GIANTS because the baseball GIANTS wouldn't leave for the west coast for another five years.

The field lighting wasn't very good, and everything was kind of dim and dingy and dark, partly due to the mud from playing on a damp real grass field.

We lived in Binghamton, so New York was the closest major market to us. Our household was all Yankees fans. We got Yankee games on Saturday and Sunday on TV (only had two channels and three total major league games a week), all Yankee games on the radio, had a Yankees farm team (the Triple-Cities Triplets), and my dad had worked in the NYC metro area before and during the war, so the market and our family were already pretty New York City oriented.

I immediately got interested and my dad and I started watching every Sunday. Dinner was planned for completion prior to kick-off.

The GIANTS were a struggling team that season, but the seeds of the 1956 Championship were being planted.

It was really a different game. The season was only 12 games, there were two divisions of 6 teams each if I remember correctly, with a Championship between the two division winners. So the season started after Labor Day and everything was over by the end of the calendar year.

Rosters were 33 players so most kickers were also position players and quite a few guys played both sides of the ball at least a little bit. One good example is GIANTS OLs Roosevelt Brown and Jack Stroud coming in to play DL for the goal line stands.

Placements were all straight ahead kicks, not soccer style kicks. Anything near 50 years was a long FG, and placement percentages weren't as good as they are today.

The goal posts were right ON the goal line and both side posts went to the ground and were padded for the first several feet up, so the posts gave the defense two extra immobile obstacles for a goal line stand, which were much more frequent than today and became part of the defensive lore of the GIANTS in the nineteen-fifties.

Helmets usually had one chin bar, sometimes two, but nothing like the cages you see now. And no eye shields either. Players were a lot smaller. A 230-pound fullback was considered a big guy, and few linemen were much over 250 or 260-pounds.

The straight T formation was the basic offense for most teams, and the running game was the main part of the attack. I still say Cleveland FB Jim Brown, who the GIANTS saw at least twice a season, was the greatest running back the league has ever seen.

The passing game wasn't as sophisticated, and the split end and flanker were yet to come, but the half back option pass was a pretty regular part of the game for teams that had somebody that could throw it. (Frank Gifford was probably the best ever at it. Green Bay's Paul Horning was another one who was really good at it.)

You would also occasionally see a team "quick kick" which meant punting unexpectedly on 3rd down, usually by one of the backs instead of the punter, so that the defense wouldn't have a return man back. The idea was to get a greater field position change due with the surprise.

The game was a lot rougher than today's sanitized version. Players played because they wanted to, not because they were getting rich from it. Most had other jobs in the off-season.

Sometimes the fields got so muddy that you couldn't tell one team from the other one, at least on b&w TV.

During the rest of the 1955 season, I did get to see a few all-timers who's careers were about over, including GIANTS kicker Ben Agajanian who was missing two or three toes from his kicking foot and Cleveland's HOF QB Otto Graham, an all-time standout who has been all but forgotten.

I really don't remember any specifics about that first GIANTS game that I saw in 1955 except that I think they lost. It didn't matter. I was hooked. And the Championship in 1956 set the hook deep and hard.

with my Dad, my brother and 3 uncles

sat in the left center field bleachers, Giants won

Tarkington vrs Brodie

was home alone at my parents house feeling sick and just sort of put the TV on and watched Phil Simms come in the game (I think Hostetler got hurt) and beat the Bucs. I became hooked on watching Giants football since that day. I also went to a surprise 16th birthday party a friend threw me later that night at a local pizza place (I was tipped off about it beforehand though). That was also the day Freddie Mercury died, some of us were talking about it that night, I wasn't too familar yet with Queen and how great he was yet

That's weird.

The first game I can recall is LT's first game in 1981, but I know I watched games before that. Just too young to remember, I guess

from the mid-late 60s until recently when I finally attended my first game in person which turned out to be Cruz's pre-season coming out party against the Jets. A fan for more than 40 years before I saw my first live game.

And thank goodness WCAX, the CBS affiliate in Burlington, VT showed the Giants games! They might have lost us if not for that once we moved from CT. The Giants at one time held camp up there and I believe to this day there remains a strong history of Giants support in the Burlington area.

in their first year at Yankee Stadium..We won 21 or 23-10 with us blocking a Dave Mann punt in the endzone for a Safety..

I attended was Giants-Steelers in '76, the second game at the new Giants Stadium. It also happened to be my 14th birthday, and a friend from Junior High who I'm sad to say is no longer with us took me to the game. There was some rain, I don't think the Giants offense ever crossed the 50 against that tough Steelers defense, and the Giants D did all it could to keep it close before finally cracking in the 4th for a 27-0 loss -- and I still loved every minute of it. This would be the first of three straight shutouts by the Steelers. It also was the final game for Bill Arnsparger as Giants coach.

Two years ago, my father and I went to see Harry Carson at a book signing -- coincidentally, again it was my birthday as well as my father's. I brought up that Steelers game, Harry's rookie season, and he recounted how he took a welcome-to-the-NFL kind of hit from a Steelers lineman.

My first television game - have no idea.

In the late 70's/early 80's - does anybody remember (it seemed anyway) the Giants used to play Pittsburg on the last Saturday of the season. It happened more than once .... anyway a friend had 4 tickets and asked me to go. I will never forget the sight of Bill Curry (safety at the time) running from the sideline to the huddle. I remember thinking - "Holy Christ - these guys are fast". lol.

but I do remember the running back that day was Randy Miniear (sp?)

A former all pro from the 40's a man named Paul Stenn, who had played mostly for the Bears and briefly with the Redskins and Giants, and still had friends on that Giants coaching staff took my dad and me to Franklin Field to see Giants Eagles.

He had a life time pass, and he used it to get into the Giants locker room, where he borrowed passes from a Giants coach, Cavanagh (I think) to get my Dad and me into the game.

We didn't sit in the stadium seating, but on make-shift bleachers on the field. Not as good of seats as you might think, because it was behind the Eagle bench and difficult to see.

I remembered being thrilled and disappointed at the same time because I couldn't see all the action. But I do remember the Giants loss.

I think my second game was a Monday Night contest in Franklin Field against the Eagles. It was freezing, but I was on the sidelines, Paul Stenn again. Problem was security kept chasing me back to the wall where once again I had difficult seeing the game.

But during the warm ups, I was right on the field, well the sidelines. Funny, only thing I remember was a punter, Bill Johnson(?) kicking a practice punt not 10 yards away from me....I couldn't believe the sound, or how high and far that ball went.

Like I said it was about as cold as I had ever been, Giants loss again. Cool thing, Howard Cosell walked right by me coming into the stadium.

Know what else.....as bad as some of those Giants teams were, I loved them just as much as I love the Giants today. I guess that's why as a fan since 56, I have a different attitude about some of the recent poor seasons than do those who came on board during the 80's.
One other thing, thanks to Mr. Stenko, which was Paul Stenn's name after he retired....I got to shake hands with Alley Sherman when he was coach and Alex Webster when he coached, again in Franklin Field, right before their games started.

Looking back can't believe Mr. Stenko had the nerve to approach these coaches at that moment. Allie was clearly and justifiably annoyed and distracted. Alex...was as friendly and nice to me as if he were meeting me at some picnic somewhere. Also met Y.A. that year, he couldn't have been nicer.

Great memories.

I was six years old, and I know I watched a couple games that year with my father and grandfather. I definitely remember being on a car trip during the playoff loss in Chicago.

The '86 season is the first year I really started getting into it.

In comment 12538097 Doomster said:

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what I had for dinner last night, and you want me to remember my first game?

+1

The mother fucking fumble...My first Yankee game was Chris Chambliss home run...kinda makes up for it.

against the Packers. I mostly remember watching the games upside down on the couch because I was so nervous. I remember more of the 63 championship against the Bears. Mostly I remember Ritchie Pettibon picking off a very late pass inthe end zone that everyone knew was going to Del Shofner. I was heartbroken and went outside to make diving catches in the snowbanks on the side of the quiet street behind my house.

Then 18 years of misery watching a team that you just knew wasn't going to win. It was gut wrenching.

We actually have it pretty good these days (except for the injuries the last couple of years) in that it wasn't that long ago that we've won it all. Back when it didn't seem like we would ever win a super bowl. The 86 superbowl was a dream that I thought would never come true. We actually have a shot to be competitive. Be thankful, it could be a lot worse.

In comment 12538022 Ralph.C said:

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The Giants were 0-5 and the Bucs were 5-0. Billy Taylor rushed for 140 yards and the Giants won. They went on to win their next 3 games and then had a HUGE game against Dallas. They had a shot to get to 5-5 and really launch the season. They were beating Dallas 14-13 or something like that late. Les than two minutes, George Martin had a huge sack of Staubach. It was either 3rd or 4th and 16 and fucking Staubach hit Drew Pearson for a back-breaking first down. Eferen Herrera then hit something like a 40-yarder to win the game 16-14. One of those games that still hurts.

that was in 1979, not 1978. i had just moved to tampa and i remember watching in it on local tv with the giants winning at home 17-14. later in the year, the giants traveled to tampa and i went to that game which unfortunately was a disaster: TB 31 NYG 3. ugh! nothing to celebrate.

But it was Jim brown and Sam Huff sometime in the Eisenhower administration.