The biggest sports event of the year in the state – the Auburn vs. Alabama football game is now history. War Eagle fans will relish discussing “the game” for a long time while Tide fans will prefer that the subject not be brought up.

Feb. 22, 1893 – Alabama and Auburn met each other for the first time in football this afternoon in a game played in Lakeview Baseball Park in Birmingham. Auburn emerged victorious by a score of 32-22.

Nov. 12, 1904 – With the coming of nightfall Birmingham was turned into a college town last night and by noon today the streets were thronged with college boys and old students wearing their respective colors of Auburn and Alabama. The football game today promises to be a historic event in college athletics. Coach Blount of Alabama and Coach Donahue of Auburn are both Yale men and it is believed they employ somewhat the same tactics.

Nov. 16, 1905 – No contest ever waged on a gridiron has created more interest socially than the Alabama-Auburn football game to be played in Birmingham Saturday.

Nov. 16, 1907 – Auburn and Alabama played to a 6-6 tie in today’s annual football matchup. It had been expected that Auburn would win a big victory in the game played on a very muddy field but the Crimson Tide, as a Birmingham sports editor refers to the team from Tuscaloosa, was able to prevent this. The future of the series in doubt but contractual negotiations between the two schools are continuing. (There was no game in 1908 and none for forty years after that until the series was resumed in 1948.)

April 6, 1919 – Intercollegiate athletic relations which have been severed for a number of years between the sister institutions of Auburn and the University of Alabama are on the eve of being resumed. The connecting link which may presage relations in athletics in the future is a series of debates to be staged at a date to be announced in May.

Sept. 16, 1929 – Auburn people are now the ones calling for a renewal of the Tigers-Tide football contests. Sentiment seems to alternate from year to year between API and Bama partisans in seeking to get the two schools playing each other again.

Oct. 23, 1932 – Every member of the Alabama State Senate supports Alabama and Auburn playing each other in football again.

Dec. 4, 1948 – The Auburn vs. Alabama football series was at last resumed today after a lapse of four decades. Alabama won decisively, 55-0. (The following year Auburn won 14-13.)

. . . . The game will begin promptly at 2:30 p.m. o’clock and halves will probably be thirty-five minutes each, as this is the time fixed in the rules for championship games. The grounds have been so arranged that a space of about ten feet is allowed on each side of the field for reporters, officials, etc. The fence has been moved back several feet but there is still plenty of room for the carriages, traps, and buggies [old-time tailgating]. It was expected that the largest crowd which eve[r] attended a football game in Alabama will witness this contest for the championship of Alabama.

. . . Coach Blount of Alabama has the distinction of being the only man in years who has been able to train a team at Tuscaloosa that could defeat Auburn. He has pulled the crimson and white up from a second-rate team to one of the best in the south.

The selection of Miss Mary Gillespie as the sponsor for the University will lend brilliancy to the occasion, as her unusual beauty and charming manner have attracted much admiration. . . . The Auburn sponsor is Miss Roberta Roberts of Montgomery, a lovely belle.