LYNDORA— Thanksgiving and football just seem to go together.

In Lyndora, they are practically one and the same.

"Not many people I know have an early turkey dinner,"32-year-old Leon Sopel said.

That's because they're busy playing in or watching the Turkey Bowl, an annual one-hand touch football game played at 12:30 p.m. each Thanksgiving at Highfield Park.

A lot of people get together for a friendly pick-up football game on Thanksgiving Day. No one has sustained an organized event for as long as this one.

Next year will mark the 50th annual Turkey Bowl. The game evolved from old-fashioned pick-up games on Sundays.

"Guys started getting together on Thanksgiving to play and it was pick-up games for five or 10 years,"55-year-old Ray Grynuck said. "Then it developed into the oldsters vs. the youngsters. It's been that way ever since."

The game is 7-on-7. Whoever shows up to play — often times 40 or more — the youngest half age-wise plays against the oldest half. The median point is generally in the mid-20's.

"Some guys wear Turkey Bowl game jerseys,"Leon Sopel said. "We had jerseys made a few years ago."

Players on the younger team wear white or lighter colored shirts. Players on the older team wear black or darker-colored shirts.

The field is chalked off the night before and the game is played on an 80 x 40-yard surface. Teams have five downs to score — there are no first downs — and the game consists of two hour-long halves. Time is kept with a stopwatch and each team gets three timeouts.

Touchdowns are six points. Teams have the option of running a play from the 2-yard line for a single extra point, or they can go for two by running a play from a few yards farther away.

Grynuck played in this game for 40 consecutive years. He joins another longtime participant — 54-year-old Nick Sopel — as a referee for the contest now.

"We let them play, pretty much,"the elder Sople said. "It has to be a flagrant pass interference before we're gonna call it."

During the 1970s, close to 200 people showed up each year just to watch the game. It still attracts 50 or so onlookers each year.

And weather is not a factor.

"We've played some years in shorts, we've played when it was five degrees below zero,"Grynuck said. "Snow, rain, wind ... It doesn't matter."

"I rearrange my family's schedule around it,"said Jeremy Dusheck, 32, who has played in the Turkey Bowl for 17 years. "It's tradition. Guys come home from other states just to play in this game."

The winning team receives the Joe Gladis Trophy. Members of the winning team vote on the game's MVPand that player gets to keep the trophy for a year.

Gladis formerly played in the Turkey Bowl and was killed in an automobile accident years ago. His sister donated the trophy in his memory.

"I had the trophy in 2002,"Charlie Gerstner said. "No one had ever put their name on it, but I scribbled my name and '02' on the bottom the year I won it. Now other MVPs are doing that."

Leon Sopel said the older team won the game 10 years in a row before the tide finally turned in 1993.

"JoJo Kuharic ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. He's the Super Gnat,"Sopel said. "That set the tone.

"I was the MVPthat year. The oldsters completed a pass to the 2-yard line in the last two minutes, but the ball was deflected up in the air, I grabbed it and went 80 yards for a touchdown."

Gerstner said players generally play the same positions every year. He's been a wide receiver for the past eight Turkey Bowl games.

There are usually enough players to form complete offensive and defensive units for each team.

"Years ago, we'd have a big bonfire and cook turkeys right there at the game,"Grynuck said. "People who played back then, their kids are playing now ... and their kids' kids are beginning to play.

"We'll get kids 5 to 7 years old into the game for a play or two, just to get them started. This is a tradition that just hasn't quit."

Nick Sopel agreed.

"It's always been a fun way to get together," he said. "It's the only time of the year you get to see certain people and catch up with them. It's a reunion on a football field."

Dusheck insists he'll never miss it.

"It's good friends and good times,"he said.