Vineyard Gazette
The debut of the first Vineyard football team, under the guidance of Coaches John Kelley, Daniel McCar­thy and Stanley Whitman, will take place tomorrow afternoon on the newly laid-out field at t
Island Cup
Football
Aaron Wilson
For the first time in six years, the Island Cup is staying on the Vineyard. In a battle of wills, the Vineyarders outlasted Nantucket 14-13, holding their rivals scoreless in the second half.
Island Cup

2006

You could hear the crowd rumbling on Saturday before the ferry carrying the high school football team, fresh from its 47-22 win over Nantucket in the annual Island Cup, had even docked in Vineyard Haven.
 
As a 10-year-old boy in Sicily, Vito Capizzo was a sporting heretic. He never liked soccer, the sports obsession of his birth country. “Never liked it,” said the Nantucket football coach.
 
And 56 years since his arrival in America, after more than 40 years coaching high school football, Mr. Capizzo has more reason than ever not to like soccer, for it is rob­bing him of talented athletes and damaging and his reputation as the ”winningest” football coach in Massachusetts.
 
Just as he feared.
 

With all the hype surrounding tomorrow's Island Cup game between the Vineyard and Nantucket, it's easy to overlook that at its core, it's only a game.

Unlike in previous years, when the contest often determined whether the Vineyarders or the Whalers made the playoffs, the only thing on the line this year is bragging rights until the two teams lock horns again next November.

2005

With less than four minutes left in the Martha's Vineyard-Nantucket football game Saturday, several Vineyard players snuck up behind special teams, linebacker and tight end coach Stephen Barbee and doused him with a large Gatorade bucket full of ice water.

The traditional prank was a fitting end to the afternoon for a coach who saw all three of his units play a starring role in the Vineyard's convincing 27-12 win over the archrival Whalers on a bright but chilly day at McCarthy Field.

With over 50 years of inter-Island competition and more than 25 years of battling for the coveted Island Cup, it is hard to believe there is a fresh angle when it comes to the Vineyard-Nantucket high school football rivalry.

What storyline remains to be written?

2004

With five seconds left in the biggest game of his life, with crazed
fans screaming at him from every direction and with everything riding on
his right foot, E.J. Sylvia delivered.

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