Alabama A&M players celebrate their 2008 victory in the Magic City Classic (Photo by Joe Songer/Birmingham News)
The stadium on the west side of Birmingham, just a few miles from downtown, was the site of the Iron Bowl, the annual in-state Civil War battle for braggin’ rights between Alabama and Auburn, for many years.
In its infancy, the SEC Championship Game also was played at Legion Field.
As the stadium aged and
After 1993, the SEC Championship Game bolted for the Georgia Dome in
The Alabama High School Athletic Association brought its Super 6 Football Championships to Legion Field in 1996, but beginning this year those games will be played at
UAB began a football program to try to fill the void, but Blazers’ football has never really caught on in
But there is one game that is still happy to call Legion Field home: the annual Magic City Classic between the Alabama A&M Bulldogs and Alabama State Hornets, the state’s two largest historically black colleges and universities.
It has become a premier event, surpassing the Bayou Classic in
The 68th State Farm Magic City Classic presented by Coca-Cola will be played Saturday afternoon.
The A&M-State rivalry is as intense as the Alabama-Auburn rivalry, but it’s more than a game, it’s an event. The battle of the bands, the fashion show, the parade, the parties are all part of what make the Magic City Classic magical.
In 2008, a record crowd of 69,113 watched A&M edge
A&M coach Anthony Jones was stunned, not by the outcome, but the fan support.
"When I heard the crowd of 69,000 and some change, it blew me away," Jones told the Huntsville Times after the game. "Both teams are in down years (but) the people in
According to the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau, the 2008 game was projected to have a $12.8 million economic impact on the region, ranking it fourth behind only the Talladega Superspeedway's two NASCAR races and the Regions Charity Classic among the region's annual sporting events.
It should be interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up Saturday since the AMP Energy 500 Sprint Cup race events will held this weekend in
I don’t think that will stop the A&M and State folks from making their annual journey to
A&M has dominated the rivalry in recent years, winning four consecutively and eight of the past 10. This year's game has added importance because A&M is trying to stay alive in the SWAC Eastern Division race. The Bulldogs (4-3 overall, 1-2 SWAC) trail
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