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While in Blacksburg, the Red and White took the short trip over to Radford, Virginia, to play local boys' school, St. Albans School. The small prep school, which opened in 1892 to just 50 pupils, had a surprising amount of acumen in the early Southern football scene. The team got to work in their very first year and were periodically defeating college teams such as Virginia Military Institute, Georgia Tech and Tennessee, and demolishing organizational teams and high schools like the Abingdon Athletic Club or Pulaski Athletic Club, by large scores by the time the Red and White faced off against them for their first time (Promus, 1903, pp. 43-45). Much of this success was likely due to the cut-throat nature of the school, which quickly developed a reputation of encouraging bullying to a sometimes-fatal extent (McConnell Library Archives, Kaitlin Scott).

The 1902 season had been a less successful one for St. Albans than the previous years; coming in to the A&M game that day, St. Albans had a record of 1-1-1, having lost their season opener on October 4th to a powerful Virginia team by the respectable score of 0-15, tied a fairly good Virginia Military Institute team 0-0 the next game, on October 11th, and annihilated the West Virginia Normal School team 34-0 at the Radford Fair on October 16th (Promus, 1903, pp. 48-51).

The St. Albans team was the home favorite by a large margin, and not just because the school lied just 50 miles east and was played in their home state. "On the morning of October 20 the [St. Albans] team, accompanied by a large number of 'rooters,' left on a special train for Roanoke. Our manager [C. S. A. Henry], assisted by Mr. O. C. Wainwright, had engaged the special train so that we could take the young ladies of Radford along with us to see the game." The yearbook in which that report was published closed with the following lines: "The team we were to play, the A. and M. College of North Carolina, was one of the strongest in the South, and so we were prepared for a hard fight" (Promus, 1903, p. 51).

The yearbook mentioned previously had the benefit of retrospect when written. Going in to the game, the Red and White were at a significant disadvantage after the injury of Capt. Gardner during the previous game against Virginia Polytechnic Institute two days before. Despite that, A&M had an able replacement in the form of their coach, Arthur Devlin, who had played just two years prior on a successful Georgetown team. It should be noted that Baird, St. Albans' coach, was not permitted to play simply because Devlin filled in for the Farmers, and that Baird had played in at least two of the teams previous three games.

So understandably, St. Albans came into the game with a bit of hubris in light of their rapidly-improving record, and especially because of their close game against Virginia, which they opined they had lost principally due to their lack of training at that early point in the season. In his year-end summary of the season, Gardner wrote "St. Albans thought that we would be dead easy. Poor St. Albans! How wretched they looked after that game I am afraid posterity will never quite imagine" (The Agromeck, Vol. I (1903), p. 147).

The two primary sources of the game, the Promus and The Charlotte Daily Observer, told slightly different stories of how the game unfolded, but ended with the same result: what papers called the "rowdiest game ever witnessed" in Roanoke (The Richmond Dispatch, October 21st, 1902, p. 8).

St. Albans kicked off to open the game, and Roberson carried the opening kickoff back 15 yards. As the Promus recounted, "from the first down Albans had to resort to defensive work." The Observer wrote that the Red and White brought the ball to midfield fairly quickly, lost the ball to the Radford boys, and then got it back "after a few plunges" when St. Albans kicked it back. Promus, on the other hand, claimed, "When we got the ball we carried it down the field five, ten, and fifteen yards every down. Then we fumbled and A. and M. got possession of the ball." The Promus went on to say, probably more accurately, that the ball continued to seesaw back and forth for much of the first half. With just 1-1/2 minutes left of play in the first half, the ball found itself in A&M possession somewhere between St. Albans' 25 and 30 yard lines. "With but a few seconds to play," wrote the Observer, Devlin dropped back and kicked a drop kick from the field to earn the Farmers 5 points. Promus called A&M's blocking "a stone wall of interference." That play ended the first half, and the score stood 5-0 in favor of the Farmers.

After a ten minute break for halftime, the game resumed. Promus wrote at the opening of the second half that "There had been several misunderstandings during the first half and now the game changed from a football game into a fight" and does not otherwise describe the second half of the game besides saying "This half was very much like the first one." The Observer agreed, writing "there were many choking matches and first fights among the players" in the second half. Devlin kicked off for A&M to open the second half; the St. Albans boy who caught the ball ran only 10 yards back before being tackled. The Radford boys did succeed in making "two or three downs" mostly by way of "their big full-back" but eventually resorted to a kick. Asbury received the kick for the Red and White and brought the ball to the Farmers' 15 yard line. From there, the Raleigh boys steadily advanced the ball up the field in 5-25 yard chunks until they arrived at the St. Albans 10 yard line. With less than 30 seconds left to play, Welch ran around left end and brought the ball to "within four inches of a touch-down," but the Radford boys braced and stopped the advance. St. Albans closed the game by committing an off-sides play and running out the clock. A&M won the game 5-0. Promus, 1903, pp. 51-52; Charlotte Daily Observer, October 21st, 1902, p. 1).

The final score of the game was apparently not quite that simple: several conflicting scores were reported, with scores being 5-0, 10-0, and 11-0 being reported. Apparently, the confusion was brought about because the ball was "over the line" when time was called, but it was ruled that the score did not count; this explains why The Agromeck incorrectly reported the final score of the game as being 10-0 (News and Observer, October 21st, 1902, p. 5).

As alluded to earlier, a great feature of the game, in stark contrast to J. M. McBryde's description of a "clean, manly and fair trial of athletic prowess," was rough and rowdy. Promus wrote that in the second half "The players would let the ball go where it wanted and just hit each other. Of course, we say that it was A. and M.'s fault, and it really was, for they started it and just kept a-going." The Agromeck, on the other hand, wrote "When they found that they could not score on A. & M., they entered into a pugilistic encounter with the 'Farmers.' It would have been better for the St. Albans team if it had been satisfied with the results of the football contest" (The Agromeck, Vol. I (1903), p. 147).

Retrospectively, much of the evidence suggests that St. Albans was the perpetrator of the fighting. The Observer wrote that "throughout the game the Tar Heels behaved with the utmost forbearance towards their opponents, who when they found themselves on the losing side, after having entered the game with the utmost confidence of their ability to win, gave a disgraceful exhibition of ruffianism on the gridiron. The Tar Heels stood their ground and used their fists with great effect, always on the defensive."

The fighting that broke out at the end of the game reportedly required police interference to break up. After the game ended, the fighting broke out anew, "extending to the crowds on the street cars." According to witnesses, "The police were powerless to manage them" (The (Richmond) Times, October 21st, 1902, p. 2; The Richmond Dispatch, October 21st, 1902, p. 8).

In addition to the aggression for which St. Albans was infamous noted in the introduction, and the report of the Observer, the Raleigh boys were more than exonerated not long later. The team was sent home with a note from Roanoke mayor, printed first in the Charlotte Daily Observer and later in the News and Observer, Joel H. Cutchin, who wrote "I wish to express to you my appreciation of the gentlemanly manner in which your team conducted itself at the ball game this evening." In the letter from McBryde mentioned in the VPI game summary, McBryde specifically requested that his letter to A&M's Capt. F. E. Phelps be reprinted in the Red and White "in order to show our people that the St. Albans crowd were not fair representatives of the youth of our State" (News and Observer, October 22nd, 1902, p. 5; Red and White, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Nov. 1902), p. 16).

The A&M students were ecstatic over their first win of the year. "A number of A. and M. boys took a big drum and headed for town, cheering, singing and rub-a-dub-dubbing. They could be heard all over the city." The procession of students walked all around downtown Raleigh, but took an early detour to the nearby Governor's Mansion, where they "stopped and serenaded long and loud and lustily." The students began chanting for Aycock, then governor, to come out and give a speech. Eventually, they were notified that the Governor was not there at the moment. At that time, Aycock's six-year-old son, Connor Aycock, siezed the moment, came out on the balcony, and gave a rousing speech: "I had a little mule, and his name was Jack. I put him in a stable and he jumped through a crack." After he bowed, "the boys simply went wild" (News and Observer, October 21st, 1902, p. 5).

The adulation resumed the following day, when the football team returned on October 21st. A float was prepared for the team, who was met by six companies of cadets and even more friends. The newly-formed college band was on hand, and the band and float paraded up Dawson Street to Hillsboro Street and then to the college (News and Observer, October 22nd, 1902, p. 5).

The St. Albans boys went on to have a decent year. Immediately after their game against A&M, they embarked southward, where they met South Carolina and Georgia Tech. The team left on November 4th, and played South Carolina in Columbia on November 6th, losing 0-5 in a game they summarized as follows: "We so far outplayed these people that we did not look upon the game as a defeat. On November 7th, the Radford boys left Columbia for Atlanta, where the following day they met Georgia Tech, who they defeated 17-0. The team then moved back northward, to Greenville, South Carolina, where the met Furman. Furman had apparently written St. Albans while they were in Atlanta to cancel the game, but the St. Albans boys "did not accept this cancellation," and eventually persuaded the Presbyterians to play under the condition that Coach Baird not play in the game. The final game of the prep schools' schedule ended in a 0-0 tie (Promus, 1903, pp. 53-57).