The history of the Garbage Bowl

History of the Game
As the year’s end draws near in Montreal, so does the Garbage Bowl Football Classic. What began as a post New Year’s Eve party spoof of American college bowl games is now a 56 year old institution that still retains the original satirical bent of its founders, in fact the Garbage Bowl game surpasses the Rose Bowl as the longest running Bowl game to he played exclusively on New Year’s Day.
Lloyd Johnson is credited with the original idea of the Garbage Bowl and his friends at the old Montreal West High School were the first participants. Three hundred and fifty fans watched that historic game in 1950 between the boys from the south of the C.P.R. railroad tracks and the boys from the north, The South, led by Dick Brooke, won that first game 15-10 never realizing the rivalry that would he created over the years.
Initially the Southern Bombers were dressed in green pyjamas and the Northern Combines were wearing red longjohns but in the mid-fifties, the South changed their uniform to green longjohns. Due to the absence of goal posts in the early years of the game, converts were made by tossing the football into garbage cans positioned at both ends of the field. From these humble beginnings came the
name of the game and also numerous imitations of the game across the continent.
The Garbage Bowl became associated with the Montreal Westward Rotary Club in 1952 when the club started sponsoring the game as a fund-raising event. The first beneficiary of the game’s proceeds was the newly merged School for Crippled Children and the Mackay Institute for the Deaf. While the Mackay Centre for Deaf and Crippled Children continues to be a recipient of funds, the list of beneficiaries has expanded to include most organizations sponsored by the Westward Rotary Club. In keeping with the spirit of the game, the money was collected by volunteers carrying garbage cans around the field into which fans would toss their donations.
No football championship would complete without a queen to preside over the event and the Garbage Bowl is no exception. In fact the Garbage Bowl was probably the first football game to eliminate sexism from the competition to become queen. Miss Leftovers, the Garbage Bowl Queen, is a student at Royal West Academy ‘picked” by her peers. All the names of the contestants are placed in a hat and the last person whose name is picked from the hat becomes Miss Leftovers. The second and third to last names chosen become Miss South and Miss North.

Past Garbage Bowl newspaper clippings