Pitch invasion

A pitch invasion (known in North America as field storming or rushing the field) occurs when a person or a crowd of people spectating a sporting event run onto the competition area, usually to celebrate or protest an incident, or sometimes as a publicity stunt. Much of the time, they can result in criminal charges, fines or prison time, and sanctions against the club involved, especially if they cause a disruption in play; although they may sometimes be more welcomed if a large portion of the spectators invades the pitch simultaneously outside of playing time.

American football

This is especially common in college and high school football when a team pulls off a major upset, defeats a major rival, ends a long losing streak or notches a history-making win. With the widespread advent of artificial turf, some schools have become more lenient about students invading the pitch. In the last few years, goalposts are also taken down within moments of the end of the game as a cautionary measure to prevent fans from climbing atop them to cause damage to the standard holding them up, damage to television camera equipment on the posts, and spectator injury. In the National Football League, rushing the field usually results in a lifetime revocation of season tickets from the holder of them, even if given or sold to another person, along with a lifetime trespassing notice banning the rusher from the team and/or stadium property, or in cases of multiple rushes, other league stadiums.

Incidents

* Chicago College All-Star Game (23 July 1976). With 1:22 remaining in the third quarter, the Pittsburgh Steelers led the College All-Stars 24–0 when a torrential rainstorm hit the field which made play impossible. After officials called for a delay, drunk and unruly fans invaded the pitch and tore down the goalposts. Officials, security, and police attempted to clear the field, but twelve minutes later, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and the sponsoring Chicago Tribune announced that the game had been called, which was greeted with jeers, and numerous brawls broke out on the flooded field before the order was finally restored.
* Muscatine High School (8 September 1978). A high school football example of fans celebrating the end of a long losing streak—the Muskies had lost 44 consecutive games from 1973 to 1977, including 40 straight league games in the Mississippi Valley Conference. Optimism was high that the Muskies, now members of the newly formed Mississippi Eight Conference, would end their five-year-long losing streak sometime during the 1978 season, but it was in the season opener on the road against Ottumwa that Muscatine won their first game since the 1973 season opener. A touchdown with just over a minute left and a two-point conversion put Muscatine ahead with a 15–12 lead. Ottumwa advanced the ball to the Muskie 33-yard line on the ensuing series but was intercepted in the Muskie end zone with 2 seconds left. As soon as time expired more than 1,000 Muskie fans rushed the field to celebrate its first win in 45 contests; an attempt to tear down the goalposts was not successful.
* Buffalo Bills v Miami Dolphins (7 September 1980; NFL). The Bills broke a 20-game losing streak against their division rival Dolphins on this day, prompting the 79,000 fans in attendance at Rich Stadium to storm the field and tear down the stadium's goalposts.
* California v Stanford (20 November 1982; Pacific-10 football). In the final seconds of the 1982 Big Game against the University of California, Berkeley (Cal), Stanford Band members and Stanford players ran out onto the field, thinking the game was over. Cal players lateralled the kickoff back and forth, with Cal's Kevin Moen dodging through the band for a winning touchdown, which he ended by running over trombone player Gary Tyrrell in the end zone. " The Play" is celebrated by Cal fans and inspires the ire of many Stanford fans. To this day, it remains one of the most famous plays in American football history. (The game does not end until the last play ends, even if the game clock runs out of time while the last play is still in progress. A penalty was called as a result of "The Play", but it was only because the spectators and band members had crowded onto the field while the game was in progress.)
* Philadelphia Stars v Michigan Panthers (17 July 1983; USFL football) USFL Championship Game. After dropping four out of five games to start their first season in the new league, Michigan acquired some NFL veterans to finish the year 12-6 and vaulted over the Oakland Invaders in the single-tier playoffs. In front of a crowd of 46,565 paid attendees at Mile High Stadium in Denver, the Panthers' late drive for a touchdown moved victory out of reach for the Stars, beating them 24–22. Despite the neutral ground afforded by a Super Bowl-style championship where the venue is selected in advance of the playoffs, several hundred Michigan fans stormed the field and congregated in the area of the south stands and south goal post. Fans briefly mounted the goal post, nearly breaking it down, and missiles, notably bottles, were hurled by fans at Denver Police, who responded with K-9 enforcement, mace and batons. In the melee, 12 people were arrested by police, half from Michigan.
* Kentucky v LSU (9 November 2002; SEC football). Kentucky looked as if they would pull off a home upset of the Tigers when they held a 30–27 lead with two seconds left and LSU with the ball at their own 26-yard line. As quarterback Marcus Randall heaved a Hail Mary pass downfield, fans rushed onto the edges of the field ready to celebrate Kentucky's victory. However, the pass was deflected off two Wildcat defenders and into the hands of LSU wide receiver Devery Henderson, who was able to run into the end zone to cap a 33–30 win for LSU and leaving the fans on the field stunned at the turn of events. The play would come to be known as the Bluegrass Miracle. Five years later at the same stadium, Wildcats fans invaded the field after avenging the loss with a win, and the school was fined $50,000 for a third violation of the conference's policy prohibiting pitch invasions (see below).
* Texas Tech v Texas (2 November 2008). Texas Tech fans invaded the Jones AT&T Stadium turf three times during the final moments of the game. The first happened after Michael Crabtree caught a touchdown pass from Graham Harrell with one second to go: overjoyed fans, thinking the game was over and the Red Raiders had upset #1-ranked Texas, spilt out onto the field, doing so again after the replay official announced that Crabtree had indeed stayed inbounds the moment before crossing the goal line. Tech was assessed two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for this, forcing them to kick off from the 7-and-a-half yard line. After the ball was recovered by Tech, the game ended and the fans stormed the field one final time without penalty.
* Auburn v Alabama (30 November 2013). Auburn University faced off against their arch-rivals, the University of Alabama in their annual rivalry game, popularly known as the Iron Bowl. Alabama entered the season ranked #1 after winning two consecutive BCS National Championships. Auburn had begun the season unranked but had moved up to #4 in the rankings, marking the second time both teams were ranked in the Top 5 of the BCS rankings. The winner of the game would earn the right to play in the SEC Championship Game. With one second left on the clock and the score tied, Alabama elected to attempt a 57-yard field goal. The kick was short and Auburn defender Chris Davis fielded it 9 yards deep in his own end zone. He returned the kick all the way to the Alabama end zone, scoring the game-winning touchdown, in a play known as the Kick Six. In spite of the SEC's penalties for rushing the field, thousands of Auburn fans (mainly students) flooded the field in delight at earning a spot in the SEC Championship game, as well as ending arch-rival Alabama's national title hopes. Following the game, the Auburn grounds crew discovered that amongst the debris left on the field was a pile of cremains on the Auburn sideline, assumed to be placed there by a fan honoring a deceased relation's request to have his ashes scattered on the field. (Traditionally sports teams rarely permit "burials" on their pitch in order to protect the health of the turf, and if so it is almost always an important club figure whose remains are scattered, or are properly buried and interred below the turf during a maintenance period.)

Southeastern Conference penalties

Section 10.5 of the Southeastern Conference By-Laws has a progressive fine policy adopted in 2004 for major sports: $5,000 for the first offence, $25,000 for the second offence, and $50,000 for third and subsequent offences within a three-year period of the last pitch invasion. In May 2015, the fines increased to $50,000, $100,000, and $250,000 for the first, second, and third plus subsequent offences, respectively, with a period for past violations being increased from three years to five. Generally for an upset situation however, the fine (which in college sports is usually a donation to a conference's scholarship fund rather than a punitive payment, as is the course for the SEC) is taken as a "badge of honor" by the school and its fanbase that knows the cost of storming well in advance, and fans and the school's booster club proudly donate the funds to a school's athletic department needed to pay the fine, along with the secondary cost for the replacement of damaged or removed goalposts.

The Kentucky Wildcats were hit with "the triple" for three football pitch invasions within eleven months, involving upset wins against league powers and an in-state rival:
* On 4 November 2006, the team was fined $5,000 for a pitch invasion after a football win against Georgia.
* On 15 September 2007, the team was fined $25,000 for a pitch invasion after a football non-conference win against archrival Louisville.
* On 13 October 2007, the team was fined $50,000 for a pitch invasion after a triple overtime football win against top-ranked LSU.

Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Missouri had been fined $25,000 for second offence violations, but most SEC schools were fined $5,000. Missouri's fine is notable in that their second violation occurred after only three years as a member of the SEC: both came when supporters flooded Faurot Field after the team clinched a trip to the SEC Championship Game, in 2013 and 2014.

LSU was fined $100,000 for a second offense following its victory 13 October 2018 vs. Georgia. Its first offense was 25 October 2014 following a victory over Ole Miss, drawing just a $5,000 fine. LSU fans twice tore down the goalposts in 2000, following victories over Tennessee and Alabama, but did not invade the Tiger Stadium pitch again until 2014. The goalposts remained intact during the 2014 and 2018 incidents.

Auburn became the first SEC institution to be fined the maximum of $250,000, following its football victory over Alabama on 25 November 2017. This came on top of violations following Auburn victories over Alabama in football in 2013 and Kentucky in men's basketball in 2016. Auburn was fined another $250,000 after fans stormed the field following its Iron Bowl victory on 30 November 2019.

Arkansas was fined $250,000 when its fans stormed the field after a victory over Texas on 11 September 2021. Two weeks later, Kentucky was hit with a $250,000 fine following a victory over Florida.

Other conference penalties

Other conferences have similar by-laws; in some conferences, the pitch invasion rule is reset to zero after five years without a pitch invasion, and the fine is doubled in the event that a player or official is injured as a result of the pitch invasion.

However, more recently, some conferences have begun cracking down on pitch invasions in all sports.

Tearing down the goal posts

There has long been a tradition in American football – primarily in college football – under which fans celebrating a major victory will tear down the goal posts on the field after the game. No one knows for certain when or how the tradition started. The Boston Public Library has in its collection a photograph of fans tearing down a goal post in 1940.

Tearing down the goal posts can be dangerous, however, as people can be injured or killed by a falling goal post. Persons who sit or hang on the goal posts while they are being pulled down can be injured if they fall off or if they land hard on the ground when the goal posts collapse. Camera equipment from a game broadcaster attached to the goalposts results in another injury possibility. These dangers can create legal implications for the schools, the localities, and the venues where the games occur.

In Massachusetts, there is a state statute that specifically prohibits the unauthorized tearing down of goal posts on a football field. Chapter 266, Section 104A of the Massachusetts General Laws provides: "Whoever willfully and without right destroys, injures or removes a goal post on a football field shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars." The Massachusetts state legislature enacted the statute in 1960 in response to a tragedy that occurred the previous year. On 26 November 1959 (Thanksgiving Day that year), a 14-year-old girl in Foxborough, Jane Puffer, was hit on the head by a falling goal post. She had been part of a crowd that was on the field after the conclusion of a high school football game while a group of fans was tearing down a goal post. The steel goal post suddenly toppled to the ground, and Puffer was hit as she was apparently trying to push another girl out of its way. She died of her injuries the next day. The state legislature enacted the statute the following year, and the law has remained unchanged ever since.

In spite of the law, on 22 December 1985, fans of the New England Patriots tore down a goal post in Sullivan Stadium (also in Foxborough) to celebrate the team's victory there in the regular season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals, which clinched a playoff berth (and eventual Super Bowl appearance) for the Patriots. Some fans carried the goal post outside of the stadium, where they caused it to come into contact with an overhead high-voltage power line. A man nearby, Jon Pallazola, was seriously injured. There was evidence that he was injured when he tried to protect himself from being hit by the falling goal post immediately after it became electrified. Pallazola subsequently sued a private security company that had been under contract to provide security at the stadium. He received a large jury verdict against the company, and then settled his claim against the company for $4.5 million. He also sued the Town of Foxborough but, in 1994, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that his claim against the town was barred by a state statute that gave municipalities immunity from claims that they failed to provide police protection or prevent crimes.

On 19 November 1983, an 18-year-old Harvard University student was critically injured when she was hit on the back of her head by a goal post that Harvard fans tore down to celebrate their team's victory over archrival Yale University at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut. The student, Margaret Cimino, subsequently filed a lawsuit in federal court against Yale, the City of New Haven, the City of West Haven, and a security company. She settled her claims against the City of West Haven and the security company. In 1986, a federal judge ruled that Cimino had sufficient evidence to take her claims against Yale and the City of New Haven to trial. The parties then reached a settlement before the trial occurred.

On 21 November 1998, a first-year student at Oregon State University was seriously injured when she was hit on the head by a falling goal post that fans tore down after the football team's 44-41 double overtime victory over the University of Oregon. She suffered a fractured skull and bleeding in her brain, but she eventually recovered from her injuries.

In November 2000, fans of the University of Texas at El Paso tore down a goal post after a victory. One fan claimed that he was injured when fans pulled the goal posts down while he was hanging on them. He sued the university and the University System of Texas. A Texas intermediate appellate court ruled in 2005 that the lawsuit was barred by governmental immunity.

On 20 October 2001, a 21-year-old Ball State University student was rendered paraplegic when a goal post that fellow fans tore down to celebrate a victory landed on his back. The university had encouraged the fans to tear down the goal post, flashing a message on the scoreboard which said, "The goal post looks lonely." The student, Andrew Bourne, settled his subsequent claim against the university for $300,000, the maximum amount that he could recover from the school under Indiana state law. He also filed a product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer of the goal post, contending that the goal post was "defective and unreasonably dangerous". In 2006, a federal appeals court ruled that the manufacturer was not liable because the danger posed by the goal post was "obvious".

Now, in order to prevent injuries, there are collapsible goal posts that stadium staff can take down within seconds after the conclusion of a game to prevent fans from tearing them down. There are also goal posts that are constructed in such a manner that they cannot be taken down by fans.

On 2 November 2015, students at the University of Kansas illegally broke into Memorial Stadium and tore down the goalpost at the south end of the field following the Kansas City Royals' World Series clinching victory vs. the New York Mets at Citi Field. The goalposts at the stadium were also torn down after victories by the Jayhawks, vs. Nebraska in 2005, West Virginia in 2013, Iowa State in 2014 and Texas in 2016, Oklahoma State in 2022, and in 1994 by fans of archrival Kansas State.

Association football

Pitch invasions are not uncommon but not as frequent nowadays in top-level football, but historically it was common for the supporters of the winning team in a major match, such as a Cup Final, to flood onto the pitch after the final whistle. For example, in Kenneth Wolstenholme's famous "Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over – it is now!" comment on the BBC's television coverage of the 1966 World Cup Final. "They" were fans who had encroached onto the pitch before the end of extra time.

Pitch invasions became less common after the 1970s and 1980s. Counterintuitively, in that period that fans were barricaded in the stands by fences yet invasions were common; after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, the barricading form of supposed crowd control was abandoned, nevertheless pitch invasions became rarer. The decline may partly be due to the fact that in 1991 pitch invasions were criminalised in the UK under the Football Offences Act,
partly due to the post-Hillsborough requirement to convert terraces into all-seater stands from which it is somewhat more difficult for spectators to physically rush down in order to reach the pitch, especially in large numbers from higher rows of seats, and partly because of a concurrent and substantial increase in the cost of tickets, especially for seating in the lower rows, leading to these seats being increasingly occupied by wealthier fans much less inclined to risk whatever legal, professional or other consequences could arise from invading the pitch. However, pitch invasions still occur, especially in the lower divisions where terraces are still permitted, tickets are much less expensive and where there is less policing and security.

Famous pitch invasions include:

* Celtic v Rangers (17 April 1909) Scottish Cup final replay. At the end of the drawn replay, the crowd invaded the pitch to protest at the lack of a result and at the prospect of having to pay to watch a third game. The SFA withheld the Cup.
* Everton v Sheffield Wednesday (14 May 1966) FA Cup final. Sheffield Wednesday had scored two goals while Everton had a goal disqualified as offside before Everton scored two goals in the second half to equalise. Shortly after the equalising goal Everton fan Eddie Canavagh invaded the pitch, eluding one police officer before being tackled and escorted off the pitch by a second officer. Everton went on to win the game 3–2.
* Celtic v Inter Milan (25 May 1967) European Cup final. As the final whistle blew, fans of Celtic flooded the pitch in jubilation as Celtic became the first British team to lift the European Cup.
* Hereford United v Newcastle United (5 February 1972) FA Cup. Non-league Hereford beat top-flight Newcastle 2–1 after extra time. There were pitch invasions after both Hereford goals and one at the end of the match.
* Manchester United v Manchester City (27 April 1974) Football League First Division. There were pitch invasions a few minutes after Denis Law scored the only goal for the visiting team, in a match that would have given United hope of staying in the old First Division had they won as it was the second to last game of the season. Although United's fate was not sealed with that goal, the pitch invasion confirmed it as the match was abandoned 8 minutes before playing time had expired, along with negative results elsewhere.
* England v Scotland (4 June 1977) Home International. Scotland won 2–1 with goals from Gordon McQueen and Kenny Dalglish in the match played at the old Wembley. At the final whistle, Scotland supporters invaded the pitch and destroyed one of the goals. The scenes were broadcast live on UK TV, and this is identified as one of the key moments when football hooliganism caught the interest of politicians.
* Celtic v Rangers (10 May 1980) Scottish Cup final. Celtic beat Rangers 1–0 during extra time and rioting ensued on the pitch at full-time. Mounted police had to break up the battling fans; this also led to the banning of alcohol from Scottish football grounds.
* Derby County v Fulham (14 May 1983) Football League Second Division. This match was controversially never concluded after Derby fans invaded the pitch. Fulham required a win to be promoted back into the top flight of English football but despite their protests the match was never replayed and the result, a 1–0 defeat, stood.
* Everton v Wimbledon (7 May 1994). In an attempt to secure 40 consecutive years of top-flight football, Everton, who had been at the foot of the table for much of a dreadful season, needed to beat the in-form Wimbledon, who had not lost for 10 games in a row. The club's chairman had offered a trip to Las Vegas if they should make it 11. Despite one stand being closed due to construction the atmosphere was known as one of the greatest ever within Goodison Park. Although they went 2–0 down in the first 20 minutes, Everton managed a remarkable comeback to win the game 3–2 and secure survival. A mass pitch invasion ensued and many images of the emotional day were screened on the BBC's '' Grandstand''.
* Carlisle United v Plymouth Argyle (8 May 1999). Having been bottom of the table for much of the season, Carlisle United needed a win to stand any chance of possible survival and retain their Football League status. With the score at 1–1 against Plymouth in injury time, on-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass came forward from his own half into the opposition box for the subsequent Carlisle corner kick. The ball met Glass on a rebound shot and he kicked into the net to score, winning the match and condemning Scarborough to relegation in the process. A mass pitch invasion took place before the match ended.
* Schalke v Unterhaching (19 May 2001). Before the last round of matches of the Bundesliga 2000–01 season, Bayern Munich led Schalke 04 by three points, but with an inferior goal difference. Schalke managed to defeat Unterhaching 5–3 in their final match at the Parkstadion

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