Princeton At Army In 2020

TigerBlog has been lucky in his life in that he's gotten to see a lot of the world.

Okay, maybe he hasn't seen as much as some others, like FatherBlog for instance, but he's still been very fortunate to have spent time in places like Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii, South America.

For all of the places he's been, his favorite - his new favorite - is the southern coast of England.

It's just a beautiful area - quiet, with amazing beaches that offer incredible views of the coastline and the English Channel, great places to ride your bike, charming pubs with awesome menus and above all some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet anywhere.

Pretty much any time TigerBlog has known anyone to have gone to England, they always talk about staying in London. TigerBlog stayed in London for one day, enough time to get a feel for it, see a show ("Fiddler on the Roof") and check out Buckingham Palace.

That was plenty of city time for him.

He's spent the last six days along the southern coast, after his short trip to France and the Normandy beaches. If you ever go to England, make sure you head south.

TB has had great luck with the weather. The forecast every day has been for steady rain and cold, and except for some of yesterday, it's been partly cloudy and in the upper 60s or low 70s.

He wanted to get to see the Bournemouth-Sheffield Premiere League game last Saturday, but he's learned that tickets are impossible to get. As in completely impossible.

Bournemouth is the largest town (or small city) in the area in which he has been staying. Bournemouth's EPL team, the Cherries, wasn't that long ago in the Fourth Division, so its climb to the elite of professional soccer has been impressive.

At the same time, Bournemouth plays in a tiny stadium, Vitality Stadium, which has seating for 11,364, making it less than half the size of Princeton Stadium. It is by far the smallest venue in the EPL, and in fact, it is the smallest by far of any of the 59 stadiums that have ever been the home for an EPL team.

There is talk of building a new stadium. Then again, there's talk of pretty much anything to do with the EPL in these parts.

TigerBlog read a newspaper called "The I" the last few days. In Tuesday's paper alone, there were 20 bylined stories about English Premiere League soccer.

Of course there's no such thing as ever getting completely away from Princeton Athletics. The big news yesterday was the coming football game in 2020 between the Tigers and Army West Point.

When TB saw that the teams were playing again, the first thing he did was research the series history. He thought they must have played a lot in the early days, but there have only been 13 prior matchups between the two.

There were two in 1981 and 1982, both won by Army, which are the only games the teams have played in the last 77 years. There were also four in the 1800s and four more between 1900 and 1908.

TigerBlog doubts that the 2020 game will repeat some of the scores of the first few games in the series. Those were:
Princeton 36, Army 4 in 1893
Princeton 11, Army 0 in 1896
Princeton 5, Army 5 in 1898

It's possible that touchdowns counted for five points back then. Or that there were a lot of safeties.

Princeton and Army were a combined 21-2 a year ago, which is fairly impressive. Army lost its 2018 opener to Duke, and from that points, its only loss was 28-21 in overtime to Oklahoma. Yes, Oklahoma, the one that made the College Football Playoffs and had the Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, Kyler Murray.

Army then dismantled Houston 70-14 in the Armed Forces Bowl. TB remembers Army won; he didn't remember it was 70-14.

Princeton, for its part, went 10-0 a year ago, winning its third Ivy League title in six years.

Of course, there's the whole 2019 season to worry about before that game comes up. This is the 150th anniversary season, complete with a Yankee Stadium game against Dartmouth on Nov. 9. Practice begins shortly.

So for now, just tuck Princeton-Army away, but remember to be there in October 2020. If you've never seen a service academy game, they're tremendous. If you've never seen a game of any kind at Michie Stadium, they're also incredible.

Anyway, that game is 14 months or so away. More immediately, TB flies home this evening.

He'll have to load up on fish and chips before he goes.