On This Date Presented by Belmont Realty
 
With the 2020 fall sports season canceled by the COVID-19 outbreak, we at Fordham have decided to dig back through our archives and provide our fans with content on some of the outstanding teams and student-athletes who have graced Rose Hill over the years.
 
Read about the 1929 Westminster Game (The Ram)

September 28, 1929 – (Bronx, N.Y.) – Coming off a 1928 season in which the Rams finish with a 4-5 record, allowing the opponents to score 130 points (though the Rams did shutout three of the foes), the Maroon and White knew they would have to play better defense if they wanted the 1929 season to be a success.
 

The Rams wasted little time in displaying their newfound stingy defense, starting with a 43-0 win over Westminster College on this date 91 years ago, one of six shutouts on the year.
 
Fordham blanked its first four opponents, including a 29-0 win over archrivals NYU, before Boston College managed six points in a 7-6 Ram win in Beantown. The only other team to score on Fordham in 1929 was Thiel College, in a 40-7 Fordham victory.
 
It was this 1929 team that inspired the designation, "Seven Blocks of Granite" to the Fordham line.  The 1929 Seven Blocks of Granite was comprised of:
John Conroy
Adam Elcewicz
Frank Foley
John Healy
Mike Miskinis
Tony Siano
Walt Tracey
Henry Wisiewski
 
That line would go on to record six more shutouts the following season while compiling a 15-1-2 record over the two-year span. But it was the 1936-1937 version of the Seven Blocks of Granite that would be better known, due to a lineman by the name of Vince Lombardi.
 
September 28, 1974 – (Bronx, N.Y.) – One of the longest standing rivalry games for the Fordham men's soccer program is the annual Battle of the Bronx against Manhattan College.  The series has seen physical matches, defensive minded contests, as well as shootouts.  In 1974, it was rainy and it poured, literally and figuratively, as the goals were aplenty in the highest scoring Battle of the Bronx, an 11-1 win by the Rams at Edwards Parade.
 
The Rams amazingly had three hat tricks in the game from Lenord Kelly, Armando Giordano and Eutace Griffiths, while getting a two-goal game from Pat Kirkland.  For Kelly, it was his fourth career hat trick, while being the third for Giordano and the first for Griffiths.
 
Griffiths was the star of the first half, netting all three of his goals to go with an assist.  In goal, Marcus Junker played the first half, allowing the only marker to the Jaspers, while Greg Boles did not allow a goal in the second half.