. If Essex County powers that be upgrade what’s needed, we can host like any other school. As for refs being fired, that’s all new to me. They called a fair game. It was not their fault that some fans got rowdy. Heck, the refs had to be protected and escorted out after the game because some Ft. Chiswell fans were angry and waiting for them outside of the field house.
What EssexTrojan1 and NNman wrote is true - 1) The refs were from the Winchester area (like 3 hours west and up from Tappahannock). I had never seen this crew before.
2) I wrote a lot about this game years ago but some of what we heard and witnessed was too ugly - plus not all of the FC players and fans were disgusting people -
FC fans chanted the "n-word" during the game and chanted other obscene comments like "refs you must like sucking N ---- ----" .
Essex players (both black and white) were called many derogatory terms. The refs penalized FC at least twice and tried their best to control it.
Many other worse comments were made. For example, a Essex white adult fan was called some awful things after the game for protecting an Essex player who was being called, well, I'm sure you can guess...
I was very proud of the Essex kids as they took this abuse, never retaliated, and they just played their game. The boys had been forewarned they might hear a little bad stuff, but we Essex folks were shocked at what went down.
3) Once during the 2nd half after FC was being soundly beaten, two FC players after a play was over, intentionally tried to hurt an Essex star (who at the time was being recruited by Va Tech and Louisville and others). Later, I watched it several times on tape, imo, it was planned without a doubt.