Clover, York renew claim to best high school football rivalry in state

The year was 1912.

Woodrow Wilson beat incumbent William Howard Taft in the presidential election. Crossword puzzles had yet to be created. And New Mexico and Arizona were admitted as the 47th and 48th states in the Union.

It also was the year Clover and York high schools first met on a football field.

Now, 110 years later, that rivalry still stands between the two communities that stand less than 10 miles apart.

“They’re so close to each other,” said Mike Fuesser, the Mayor of York. “Think Tobacco Road with UNC and Duke. I mean, we’re that close to each other, and there’s just the closeness of both communities. As long as they play football against each other, it’s bragging rights for the year.”

Clover is 10-7 in the series since 2004 and has won four of the previous five matchups, while York will look to notch its first win in the series since 2017.

The rivalry between the Clover Blue Eagles and the York Cougars brings out passion in both communities, with several people having generations invested in the game.

Some enjoy it for the fun, but others take it a lot more seriously.

Greg Holmes, the mayor of Clover, was born and raised there and participated in the football rivalry himself over 30 years ago. Now, as a mayor, he still fully supports the rivalry, even establishing friendly wagers on the game with the mayors of York. The loser has to feed the winner.

Holmes said while the matchup has lost some of its luster in recent years, there is still a lot of emotion.

“It’s more laid-back now,” said Holmes, who has been the mayor of Clover since 2017. “Sometimes, I don’t know if the kids feel that it matters whether they win or lose. But I tell everybody: Clover, we can lose every game out the year, but we better not ever lose to York.”

Friday will be the 109th overall meeting between the Cougars and the Blue Eagles.

They had met every year from 1943 to 2020, but COVID concerns prevented last year’s meeting and they couldn’t reach a mutual agreement on how to reschedule the game.

“It’s been one of the best rivalries in this state,” York head coach Dean Boyd said. “I would even say the Southeast as far as high school football is concerned. It matches up with any rivalry you can think of. A lot of people used to talk about Rock Hill and Northwestern and how big that was, but this rivalry has been around and lasted longer. It’s produced a great sense of community pride over 100 years.”

York (2-0) and Clover (0-2) may appear on paper to be coming into Friday’s game at opposite ends of the competitive spectrum. However, the Cougars refuse to overlook this game.

“Clover has had a really tough schedule to this point,” Boyd said. “They played the No. 2 team in 4A (Northwestern) and barely lost. Then they played the No. 3 team in 5A (Hillcrest) and barely lost that game, so they’ve got a good football team.”

On the other hand, Clover knows they’re facing another top team in the state, so they have to be on their A-game if they want to avoid falling to 0-3 on the year.

“This will be the third week in a row that we face a team averaging 50 or more points on the season,” Blue Eagles head coach Brian Lane said. “We held (Northwestern) to 32, and then we held (Hillcrest) to 19 and had a chance to win at the end of the game. Hopefully, our defense continues to play well and can slow down York’s running game. After that, I feel like we just have to execute.”

The game will be at York High School and kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.

This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 1:57 PM.