It would be an injustice to say the game didn't matter. Try telling the players who were limping or staggering off the field that the punishment they had endured didn't matter. Better yet, try telling that to the defender who had his head tilted back so he could prevent more blood from spilling onto his jersey. Too many welts were traded, too much sweat was lost, and too many voices went hoarse in the three-plus hours that members of the New York Police Department and Fire Department of New York played tackle football Sunday to diminish their efforts in the slightest. At the same time, the game wasn't what made the 30th annual "Fun City Bowl" in Giants Stadium so much more special than the previous 29. What made it special was that everyone who played, coached, officiated, organized, and watched knew that the sunny, October-like day was about something far more important than an athletic contest. Of the 343 firefighters who died in the World Trade Center attacks, 22 were active and former members of the FDNY "Bravest" football team. No players from the NYPD "Finest" squad perished, but the club dedicated its 10-0 victory to their 23 fellow police officers who were among the thousands that lost their lives on Sept. 11. "Nobody's recovered from nine-one-one yet, I can tell you that," NYPD linebacker Garry McCarthy said as he and his teammates left the field with their ninth consecutive win over the FDNY. "And it's going to be something that's going to stay with us for a long time. We talk about (the police victims) all the time. "Everybody on this team knows somebody who we lost." Normally, the game is played at a high school or college, and draws minimal outside interest. Sept. 11 changed all that. This year's game was originally scheduled for St. John's University, but was moved to Giants Stadium to accommodate a "Fun City Bowl"-record crowd of 15,000 and, to a larger extent, the heightened level of local and national media attention. As a fund-raising event, it was a huge success, generating $200,000 that will equally benefit the NYPD and FDNY survivor funds. The NFL, alone, contributed $50,000. As a football game, it wasn't always pretty. The players, all with a minimum of high-school football experience and most with at least two years on the collegiate level, generally knew what they were doing and looked in pretty good physical shape. However, there were enough miscues and penalties to remind everyone that playing football was not their primary calling in life. Did that bother the crowd? Not in the least. The event's deeper meaning was made clear during pregame ceremonies, when the "Bravest" recognized the surviving family members of the FDNY players killed in the attacks. Group after group of parents, widows, and children was escorted to midfield to receive the player's framed jersey bearing a plaque inscribed "Forever a hero on our team." Bagpipes played, as they had at so many funerals in the New York area. An Irish tenor sang the somber ballad, "Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears," as he had at so many memorial services. One of the survivors was Ernest Bielfeld, 67, a retired paper handler for the New York Daily News. His 44-year-old son, Peter, a fierce-hitting defensive back for the "Bravest," died after entering the first tower just before it collapsed. At the time, Peter, assigned to Ladder Company 42 in the Bronx, was on medical leave, having suffered a shoulder injury a week earlier. About two hours before the attacks, he was having the shoulder examined by a doctor. After the first plane hit, he and three other firefighters piled into a car and drove to Ladder 10, which was across from the World Trade Center. They grabbed whatever available gear they could find, and headed to the towers to do whatever they could do to help. Before leaving, Peter left his wallet in a firefighter's locker. With it, he left a note identifying who he was and the company he was from. He asked whomever found the note to please tell his mother, father, sister, brother, girlfriend and their daughter that he loved them all. "I've talked to many firemen and they've never left a note like that," Ernest Bielfeld said. "He just had a premonition, maybe. He knew it was a bad situation." Ernest remembered how, as a former New York Jets season-ticket holder, he would take his two sons to Shea Stadium. He remembered how much Peter loved playing the game through high school, college, semipro and especially for the "Bravest." He also remembered that during the six months Peter's sister was battling cancer, Peter would finish his shift in the Bronx, pick her up in New Jersey, drive her to chemotherapy in Manhattan, and stay with her the whole time before driving her home at night. "That's the type of guy Peter was," Ernest said. "Losing him is hard. It's been the worst eight months of my life." After the pregame ceremony, New York Giants offensive lineman Luke Petitgout, one of several players from his team at the game, solemnly watched as the long line of survivors exited the field. "It's just amazing the number of people that this has affected," said Petitgout, who continues to be haunted by the sight of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center as he drove his car near here after the Giants returned from their Sept. 10 Monday night opener in Denver. On the left shoulder of each NYPD and FDNY jersey was a patch of the Twin Towers rising above the American flag. But the players honored their fallen brothers and sisters in a much larger way with their high-intensity performance and a relentless attitude that seemed to say, "We're still here! We're still going strong!" To drive home the point that the spirit of their deceased fellow officers still lives within the "Finest" team, McCarthy read their names roll-call style in the locker room before the game. And after each one, the whole team shouted, "Present!" "We go on," said Pudgie Walsh, a retired New York firefighter and long-time semipro football coach in Brooklyn who founded the FDNY team. "There were three towers at the World Trade Center. The one the public really didn't see until nine-eleven was the Fire Department of the City of New York. And that tower's standing stronger today than it ever was. "Next year, when we're playing this game at St. John's, and none of this media is around, those guys will be putting their helmets into the other guys' stomachs and banging them around just as hard as they banged them around today."

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