A fan inside Neyland Stadium launched what appeared to be a cup of beer toward the field last Saturday after Tennessee lost to BYU in double overtime. But that’s nothing compared to the riots that ensued after Chattanooga defeated the Vols for the first time on Nov. 8, 1958.

If history were to repeat itself on Saturday, which surely couldn’t happen (could it?), how might fans react?

Well, in 1958, goal posts were torn down, officers were injured, arrests were made. And instead of tossing beer, it was tear gas that was thrown in an attempt to break up the raucous crowd of more than 1,000 people.

Here’s the full story from the front page of the News Sentinel on Nov. 9, 1958:

1,000 riot at UT for 1 ½ hours

Tear gas and fire hoses quell mob

More than 1,000 fans rioted after the Tennessee-Chattanooga football game yesterday at Shields-Watkins Field (editor's note: this is the former name of Neyland Stadium).

Policemen using tear gas and sticks and firemen using streams of water finally dispersed the mob one hour and 25 minutes after it had formed.

Before the nightmare ended, after dark, eight policemen and a civilian were injured, 10 persons were arrested on various charges, and some $2,000 worth of damage was done to police cars.

Chattanooga Mayor P.R. Olgiati pleaded in vain for the rioters to disperse.

The rioting started shortly after Chattanooga fans succeeded in uprooting the north end goal posts. It was sparked when officers attempted to arrest two fans for fighting and put them into the patrol wagon. Some of the fans objected, and others, sensing the excitement, joined the mob.

Grenades thrown

Before it ended, streams of water were trained on the surging crowd and tear gas grenades were shot and thrown into the fighters’ midst.

What happened the previous Saturday, with football players fighting during the Tennessee-North Carolina game, was but nothing compared with yesterday’s brawl.

Policeman Bob Poynter, 28, patrol wagon driver, was injured twice. The first time was when the vehicle’s clutch plate jumped through the floor board, injuring his ankle, as he sought to drive away from the field with the prisoners inside.

Hit by bottle

Later, after his wagon was out of commission, Officer Poynter was struck on the head by a pop bottle. He was admitted to University Hospital for observation.

Other officers injured were:

Traffic Capt. Frank Reams, 46, broken toe, admitted to University Hospital.

Officer Bruce Shuler, 28, gas burns on face and neck.

Sgt. J.O. Gillespie, 30, hit on the back.

Officer Bernard Waggoner Jr., 30, cut on right hand with a knife.

Rookie Patrol Officer Morris Collins, hit on leg and head by bottles.

Officer Carl Bunch, gas burns. Officer Bunch was also punched in the back by someone in the crowd.

Officer William Geros, 26, hit on leg with bottle.

Struck by night stick

The civilian inhered is John Starns, 20, Piney Plats, who was treated for a head cut caused when he was struck by a policeman’s nightstick. He was charged with being drunk and resisting arrest.

Later, after getting out of jail on bond, Starns went to St. Mary’s Hospital for treatment for rib injuries.

Others charged are Robert E. Swafford, Maryville, felonious assault and inciting a riot; Thomas M. Hickney, UT student from Chattanooga, drunk and disorderly conduct; Harry D. Mansfield, Chattanooga, malicious mischief and destroying city property; Robert H. Bartlett, Chattanooga, drunk, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest; Lester I. Lessig and John Williams Loveday, both of Chattanooga, both charged with disorderly conduct by refusing to move on; James A. McCord, Chattanooga, malicious mischief and inciting a riot; Charles W. Wiseman, Chattanooga, drunk; and Jerry Cooley, Nashville, disorderly conduct, refusing to move on and resisting arrest.

City Court hearing for all 10 has been set for 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.

Reporters in center

Rioting came almost immediately at game’s end, which saw the scrappy Moccasins defeating Tennessee for the first time in the 51-year rivalry. The score was 14-6. The season was disastrous already.

News Sentinel reporters Powell Lindsay and Homer Clonts, caught in the center of the riot, gave this blow-by-blow account:

As some Chattanooga rooters pummeled the south goal posts in a diversionary move, more Moccasins surrounded the north end posts, which flew the blue and gold of Chattanooga. Only one policeman protected this goal.

Policemen arrive

The souvenir-seekers shook down one upright and unscrewed it as others of them formed a buffer to ward off policemen. Four youthful grabbers ran toward the north end exit in front of the bleachers. Six policemen arrived.

As some Moc fans grabbed at the bunting on the goal post being carried away, others blocked the surging policemen. Since the scene was near the north end of the East Stands, where most Chattanooga fans sat, most of the 1,000 in the mob were considered Chattanoogans.

A policeman grabbed a youth blocking his way to the four carrying away most of the goal post. That set the crowd loose, and it sought to prevent policemen from putting the youth in the paddy wagon parked nearby.

Tried to flee

The young man tried to escape and a policeman raised his stick and appeared to try to strike the youth. The crowd then went wild.

It took a half-dozen officers to put the youth into the patrol wagon. After they got him inside, he jumped out and started to run. An officer struck at him with his night stick. The youth was put back into the wagon. That riled the mob more.

Officer Herman Sloan lost his cap in the struggle. When he finally got it back, some fan apparently had taken the badge from the cap for a souvenir.

It was at this point that Mayor Olgiati climbed on the paddy wagon rear step and pleaded for sanity:

“Let’s handle this orderly. I’m mayor of Chattanooga. I’ll talk to the mayor of Knoxville, Jack Dance, if I need to.”

Some of the mob yelled for the others to be quiet so that Mayor Olgiati could be heard. But others started chanting “Turn ‘em loose.”

Tommy Bronson, Vol student-coach, sought to be a peace-maker.

“There’s boy in this truck who’s hurt. He has a brain concussion. Let them get him to a hospital.”

The crowd yelled back at Mr. Bronson: “Who hurt him?”

Woman in tears

A young woman, understood to be the wife of the injured fan inside the paddy, peered through the wagon window in tears. The crowd kept yelling for policemen to turn the arrested fan loose, but policemen refused.

Policeman Poynter then sought to drive the wagon away. But someone had stolen the wagon keys.

Finally, Officer Poynter “hot-wired” the police wagon and got it started. The wagon stopped shortly when the clutch came through the floorboard and injured the officer’s ankle. He stepped outside and was knocked out by the thrown pop bottle.

Missiles fly

Other objects started falling in the crowd, most of then aimed at policemen.

An unidentified man got the crowd’s attention for a moment when he yelled above the din: “If you’ll quiet down I’ll see to it that these fans are turned over to the Hamilton County sheriff.”

The mob, just getting its breath, settled down for just a moment and gave ground. A boy, sitting atop a five-foot bush watching it all, fell to the ground. The angry fans laughed.

Policemen bar doctor

Then a physician sought to make his way to the patrol wagon but was halted by the crowd. “He’s a doctor,” someone yelled. “Let him through.”

Policemen would not let the physician pass.

Meanwhile, policemen and firemen got emergency calls. Fire trucks flying down South Gay had to weave between post-game traffic to get from downtown to the stadium.

Police Chief Kimsey, sure the riot would be a bad one, started firing his tear gas into the mob, which by now had moved behind the East Side stadium-dormitory.

Grenades thrown back

As tears welled up among the rioters, Chief Kimsey threw a tear gas grenade that landed in their midst. With the grenade gushing gas, a fan picked it up and threw it back at the policemen.

“It’s disgraceful,” Chief Kimsey told Reporter Lindsay. “The last time I had used tear gas was to get a killer out of a building.”

At the time, about 4:45 p.m., firemen arrived. They trained their hose on the surging fans – wetting most of them.

With hatred trained on the policemen, however, water was not to stop the fans. They kept trying to reach the uniforms in front of them.

Water aimed at windows

More tear gas followed. Firemen even shot water at the boys’ dormitory windows, where students were taunting the officers with explicatives from above.

John S. Walker, 41-year-old salesman of 3500 Glennhurst Drive, told the News Sentinel that the door handle of the paddy wagon clipped his right arm, injuring it, as he tried to get out of its path through the crowd.

Mr. Walker also said there were “women and children,” all trying to escape, in the crowd into which Chief Kimsey fired tear gas.

Wouldn’t disperse

Chief Kimsey said, “The biggest trouble wasn’t that the crowd was unruly but the fact that it would not disperse.”

He said the delay in getting the crowd scattered was that people were so dense policemen couldn’t get in with tear gas.

Vol Coach Bowden Wyatt, reached at home after the game, said, “I didn’t ever know anything was happening until I walked out of the dressing room and caught a whiff of that tear gas. I turned around and stayed inside till everything cooled off. I’m no novice with things of this sort. When there’s a crowd involved, I stay away.”

Thirty minutes later, the fight was over.

Mayor Olgiati and Hamilton County Sheriff James Turner went to City Jail and pleaded for the Chattanoogans’ release.

Damage in thousands

Safety Director David Garrison estimated damage to “police equipment” at “several thousand dollars.”

The patrol wagon, he said, “looked as if it had been dynamited.”

The director estimated “some 100 policemen” were on duty trying to calm the crowd.

Lt. Hugh Ammons said, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, including prison riots.”

Troopers recalled

Every State Trooper on duty in the area was dispatched to the stadium. This included some who had come from Chattanooga and Kingsport to see the game. They were on the way home when they received the call to return to the stadium, the Highway Patrol office reported.

Tires were slashed on several police cars, fires were set in the seats of the cruisers and tops of the cars were smashed in, police reported.

Policeman Willard Minnis said the whole thing “really” stemmed from a fist fight that broke out near the throng of fans trying to tear down the goal post at the north end of the field.

Gus Manning, UT Athletic Department publicist, said “The Vanderbilt game years ago is the last time I remember a goal post being town down here.”

While the crowds and police battled, the UT Vols ate calmly at the training table inside East Stadium and not too far from the riot.

During the rioting, Capt. Ross Sims, busy trying to restore order, lost his pistol without knowing exactly when or where. The gun was still missing last night. Fellow officers said the captain was wearing his gun under his coat at the game, although he was in uniform.

Handling poor, says UC head

President David Lockmiller of the University of Chattanooga said after returning home last night that the postgame fracas grew out of faulty handling by the Knoxville police force.

“The whole thing was poorly handled,” Dr. Lockmiller said, according to the Associated Press. “It was merely an outbreak of fisticuffs and several men of good judgment could have handled it. Rather than trying to control it, the police aided and abetted something that should have never happened.

“Whether or not it is common custom to tear down the goal post as a demonstration that ‘to the victor belongs the spoils,’ the Knoxville police made an issue of it. If they had used good judgment that would have let the boys have the goal posts.

“Finest sportsmanship was displayed by both teams during the game and nothing happened after the game should spoil the splendid relations between schools which have so long been friends.”