1929 Charlie Carter

NEWTOWN − One of the largest crowds ever assembled at Pickering Field, in Newtown, were witness to a nip and tuck football game in which Newtown’s Iron Horse proved to be the master of Langhorne.

Newtown won the toss up and chose to receive the ball but soon lost the pigskin on downs, chiefly due to the lack of experience on the part of the second team that had started the game. Langhorne now had possession of the ball on Newtown’s 40-yard line and in a few plays advanced it to the 20-yard line from where [Charles] Carter threw a beautiful pass to [George] Paxson, who caught it in the end zone for the game’s first score; the try for the extra point was blocked. While the quick score took the Iron Horsemen by surprise, they managed to hold their own with Langhorne for the rest of the period.

1929 George Paxson

At the start of the second period Newtown’s first string then went in and now its tactics were offensive instead of defensive. Playing straight football, the Iron Horse carried the ball down the field in almost a steady trot, Shields and Barone doing most of the ball carrying. A low pass from the center caused “Red” White to fumble the ball on his own 30-yard line, but he recovered it quickly and with a burst of speed made a wide end run for a touchdown; just as the try for the extra point proved to be unsuccessful the whistle blew closing the second period with both teams deadlocked at six.

1929 Coach Charlie Beck

The last half opened finding both sides trying hard to break the tie. Langhorne’s trick plays and passes had Newtown guessing and were it not for the bang up defensive plays by Newtown’s backs, the visitors would have scored again, for their thrusts always found an opening at the weak center of the line. However, the Iron Horse was not to be outdone, for in the last minutes of play it started another gallop to the goal line and the winning touchdown, this time Shields carried the ball over for the counter, while White on an end run accounted for the extra point.

Newtown showed the superior strength, scoring eleven first downs as to Langhorne’s five; Langhorne tried five forward passes and completed four and Newtown completed one out of the two attempted. The game was minus many penalties and was the hard fought kind that pleased the spectators.

1929 Langhorne-Middletown Team

Editor’s Note: After 81 seasons of play, the Redskins have logged over 15,000 points with all of them traced back to that game in 1929 and the pass route run by George Paxson and aerial strike tossed by Charles Carter which found its mark. Plus in addition to that first passing combination and score, ’29 was also the first full campaign for the ‘Skins as 1928 had really been just a one-game warm-up season. And 1929 was also head Coach Charlie Beck’s first of fourteen years in charge of the Moleskinnners as he took over from William Thomas who was the school’s full-time principal who had served as head football coach for that short 1928 effort. Although Beck couldn’t know it that year, the 14 seasons would be the benchmark for “years coached” until broken by head man Mark Schmidt when he logged his fifteenth at the helm during the 2009 undertaking. Interestingly, and as noted in the article, the Newtown club was then known as the “Iron Horse” owing to the train stop in their town with their more “modern” nickname of “Indians” not being adopted for a number of years. Also, end George Paxson is identified as a “scrub” or non-starter football player in his school picture yet he can still lay claim to being the first Langhorne gridder to have found the Promised Land. Be that as it may, 1929 was a year of many “firsts” for the Langhorne school and the players and teams that have followed no doubt owe a debt of gratitude to those pioneering boys and their coach as they put in place the foundation for what would ultimately become one of the Keystone state’s premier grid scholastic programs