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Western and Queen's don't like each other on the football field. It's tradition. Hostilities will flare up again today when the two uber-rivals tangle in Kingston for the Yates Cup, given to the best team in Ontario University Athletics.

The Yates, North America's oldest football trophy with a history that dates to 1898, will be awarded at rickety Richardson Stadium after a game featuring two evenly matched teams led by two of Canada's top university quarterbacks.

“Tradition never graduates, never grows old,” said Pat Sheahan, in his ninth season as head coach of the Queen's Gaels, formerly known as the Golden Gaels. “That's one of the things we pound away at here. The kids understand there's a time-honoured history that they're about to become a part of.”

That tradition has its beginnings in the late 19th century when Queen's, the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal formed the Canadian Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union, Canada's first interuniversity athletic organization.

The trophy, donated by Henry Brydges Yates, a McGill medical graduate, predates the CFL's Grey Cup, first presented in 1909.

In 1929, the football union's membership expanded to London, Ont., to include the Mustangs of the University of Western Ontario.

Astonishingly, although today's game will mark the 84th meeting between the two institutions, it will be just the second time Queen's and Western have met in a one-game championship for the Yates Cup.

The only other time was 1979 when the burly Greg Marshall, who is now the Western coach, bulldozed his way to close to 100 yards during a 32-14 Mustangs win.

TSN broadcaster Rod Smith had a good view of Marshall's heroics that day. Smith was a rookie with Queen's and was the long-snapper for punts and field goals.

Smith said the fact that arch-rival Western was Queen's opponent that day was not lost on the players. He said the tension was thick as Queen's boarded the bus from the downtown London hotel that would take them to J.W. Little Stadium for the game.

“One of the things that broke up the tension, Queen's engineers, who are notorious pranksters, had painted these huge Q's on all the trees on the way to the stadium,” Smith recalled. “They also included the numbers of some of the veteran players.”

And that wasn't all.

“When we get to the field they'd also spray-painted Queen's in huge letters across the field, which I'm sure really P-O'd all the Western officials. They tried to burn it off and remove the paint – which they did. But what remained was a brown Queen's that you could read on the field during the game.

“But Western got the last laugh [by winning the game].”

After being granted membership in the CIRFU, the first game Western played in the new loop was against Queen's on Nov. 2, 1929 – the Golden Gaels prevailed 25-2 – so the eastern Ontario school represents Western's oldest football rival at the senior intercollegiate level.

Overall, Queen's holds a 43-38-2 advantage in the rivalry. Western leads in Yates Cup championships, 28-22.

Both teams have known their share of football legends.

From the Queen's side there's been Jim Young, Ron Stewart, Mike Schad, Jock Climie and Frank Tindall. From Western, Jamie Bone, Tim Tindale, Lionel Conacher Jr. and John Metras.

Tindall and Metras were both coaches and two of the most endearing personalities in Canadian university sports. Both are both members of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Tindall- and Metras-coached teams butted heads for more than two decades, beginning in the late 1940s, with Queen's and Western each winning eight Yates Cup titles over that span.

After he retired from coaching Tindall used to be a fixture as a spectator at Richardson Stadium.

And after his death in 1993, the university used to honour his memory at Queen's games by placing his famous fedora on the seat he used to occupy.

Jamie Bone, the former Mustangs quarterback who guided Western to back-to-back Vanier Cup national championships in 1976 and 1977, said he believes the seeds of the rivalry really took hold during the Tindall-Metras era.

Bone said he recalls hearing one story when Western was taking the train from London to Kingston for a game against Queen's during the 1950s.

All the way, Metras and the rest of the coaching staff just ripped into the Queen's football program, a no-holds-barred attack designed to whip up the emotions of the young players for the big game.

“Once the team got to Kingston and the players were all in their hotel rooms at curfew, doesn't the entire Western coaching staff then head over to Tindall's house for a party,” Bone said. “They were all really good friends but they really tried to keep it away from the players.”

Bone, who lives in Darien, Conn., where he helps coach the local high school football team, said that fierce rivalry is the reason he's planning to make the trip to Kingston to watch the game.

“Queen's has been an outstanding team and we've had some great games over the years, not just in the recent era but way back,” Marshall said. “Certainly it's a big game for our alumni because they understand the importance of it.”

Today's Yates Cup is shaping up to be one of the best in history, with two young, rifle-armed quarterbacks.

Western, which finished the regular season with a 6-2 record and is ranked No.5 in the country, is led by quarterback Michael Faulds.

The fifth-year senior set records in Canadian Interuniversity Sport this year for most passing yards in a single season (3,033) and over a career (10,811).

Dan Brannagan of Queen's, which finished in first place with a 7-1 record and is ranked No.4, finished with 10,714 career passing yards.

In their only head-to-head meeting this season, Queen's emerged with an exciting 27-26 victory in Kingston; the Gaels scored the winning touchdown in the final minute.