WEST BRIDGEWATER — He was there when Patriots fans fled as the stands burst into flame, and when they tore down a goal post and hauled it out of the stadium. He cheered at the Snow Bowl, gaped in wonder at the Snowplow Game, and claimed victory in a snowball fight with the Minnesota Vikings. He has sat through more losing seasons (16) than recent arrivals on the Patriots bandwagon would imagine possible.
Long before “New England” became a synonym for “perennial football juggernaut,” Charles Underhill of West Bridgewater stayed true to a hapless team that bounced from venue to venue like a barnstorming vaudeville act. Underhill, 73, became a season ticket holder in 1966, the franchise’s seventh season. In those 47 seasons, Underhill says, he has attended every playoff and regular season game played at home — save one, for reasons beyond anyone’s control.
Comments
Now that's a trueblue Patriot fan--Loyalty must be Charles Underhill's middle name. Thanks for this article. I hope you have a particularly good time at the game tomorrow, Mr. Underhill.
and you what's missing from this article. Underhill never went to a Superbowl. And do you know why?
Every time the Pats have gone to a Superbowl under Bob Kraft's ownership, Kraft has held a Superbowl Ticket "lottery" to distribute tickes to "random" season ticket holders. Obviously Kraft cannot provide a Superbowl ticket to every one of the 65,000+ season tickets holders, but he does get over 10,000 tickets to distribute (AFC and NFC Champion teams get 17.5% of tickets each).
and the funny thing is ... no one that sits in a cheap seat has ever won the lottery.
Bob takes the 12,000+ tickets and gives them to the beautiful people; his friends and the luxury box fat cats.
If Kraft's Superbowl lottery were "fair", Underhill would have gone to a Superbowl by now.
Bobbie Kraft... if you are lucky enough to make it to the Superbowl, don't forget the little people, like you usually do.
Excellent, good for you Mr. Underhill!
I hope he doesn't belong to a tennis club with a house charge. :-))
45-92-3 over the first 10 years, now that's dedication! I'll be thinking of you during Sunday's game Mr. Underhill, but from the comfort of my own living room.
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That 1970 game at Harvard against the Vikings was a memorable time. Joe Kapp played for the Vikings the year before, took them to the super bowl, but they let him go, and he was playing for the Patriots. There was over a foot of snow in the stands and no maintenance crew cleared off the seats, which were concrete. There was just no place to put the snow. A guy behind us gave us some newspapers to sit on, which cut the cold. We sat right behind the Vikings bench, and couldn't see the action if it came close to the sidelines. As the Viking piled it on the hapless Pats, the snowball fights started from the stands behind us. We stayed down, and out of it, because the players were right there in front of us! Every time one of them got nailed, he'd turn around and give us a dirty look. Those were the days of the purple people eaters, and those guys were big and mean. They got bombed with snowballs by the fans, and it was great, something that would be too politically incorrect to do today.