New Year’s Eve marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most remarkable American football matches in history. A game that almost certainly should not have been played on New Year’s Eve 1967, it remains as renowned for the hideously bitter conditions in which it was contested as its thrilling denouement.

The Green Bay Packers, managed by the legendary Vince Lombardi, were aiming to make history by becoming the first team in the history of the play-off era to win three consecutive NFL titles. Similarly venerated Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry and his men had the difficult job of stopping them. Up for grabs: the NFL Championship and a place against the AFL champions in the second Super Bowl. Still in its infancy and nothing resembling the spectacle that stops a nation it has since become, that particular decider would prove little more than a footnote to what has gone down in football folklore as the “Ice Bowl”.

“A sell-out crowd has braved the coldest New Year’s Eve in the history of Green Bay, Wisconsin, to witness the 1967 NFL Championship game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers,” announced CBS colour man Frank Gifford in his scene-setter shortly before kick-off. “The mercury has dipped to -15F [-26C], with winds gusting at 18 miles per hour as we approach kick-off. That makes it the coldest game in league championship history.”

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Despite the harshness of the elements, the crowd in question numbered 50,861, mostly Packers fans protected against the biting cold by parkas, woollen balaclavas and thermal underwear to supplement their usual duds, with many wrapped in sleeping bags as the fog of their collective breath shrouded the bleachers. Remarkably, given the perishing conditions in which the wind-chill peaked at -55C, only one of those present died from exposure in stands surrounding a football field that had literally frozen solid.

Concerned about just such a scenario ahead of the season, Lombardi had spent $80,000 on a crude form of undersoil heating that was ill-equipped to cope with a cold snap that was as extreme as it was unexpected. When the tarpaulins covering the playing surface overnight were removed, moisture that had risen to the surface flash-froze and turned the field into an ice-rink that rendered the cleats worn by the players worse than useless and more of a hindrance than a help. Despite this, there was no suggestion from the sport’s overlords that the match should be postponed.

At the risk of labouring the point, it was a day so bitterly cold that the Green Bay wide receiver Carroll Dale’s toenails froze, turned black and would later fall off. The Dallas running back Dan Reeves took a hit and walloped his head so hard on the icy turf that one of his own teeth punctured his upper lip leaving a scar that remains to this day. Upon realising his whistle had frozen after an attempt to blow for kick-off, match referee Norm Schachter and his assistants were forced to officiate by shouting and gesticulating to signal the beginning and end of each play. There was no end of pre-match shouting and gesticulating from umpire Joe Connell, who pulled off a sizeable chunk of one of his own lips while trying to separate it from the metal whistle to which it had become firmly frozen. The blood that poured from the wound quickly solidified on Connell’s chin and remained visible throughout the game.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frozen spectators brave the elements at Lambeau Field. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

“We got extra socks, thermal underwear and things like that,” Schachter would later recall. “I had regular underwear on and three pairs of stockings and then I put plastic bags over my feet. I had a sweatshirt from one of the teams, a turtleneck sweater and then we had on those plastic bags you get from the cleaners. I knew my cheeks were frostbitten. If we hadn’t had ear muffs and mittens, I think we would have had a tremendous problem.”

The players had no such luxuries. Ernie Stautner, coach of the Cowboys’ celebrated Doomsday Defence, forbade his charges from wearing gloves on the grounds that they were “for sissies”. In a bid to keep his hands warm, the Cowboys wide receiver Bob Hayes, the 1964 Olympic 100m gold medallist, kept them wedged down the front of his pants during huddles. The Packers quickly twigged that unless he removed them it meant he would not be involved in subsequent plays. Many of the players on Lambeau Field that day suffered frostbitten fingers, as well as lung damage sustained by greedily gulping down great mouthfuls of cold air as they went about their brutal business.

After 59 minutes and 44 seconds of shivering, slipping, sliding and no end of slapstick-induced fumbling on this frozen Wisconsin tundra, a thrilling victory eventually went to Lombardi and his Packers. Trailing 17-14 with 16 seconds remaining and just a single yard required to get over the line for a touchdown, the Packers quarterback Bart Starr called a time-out, trotted to the touchline and suggested to Lombardi that due to the inability of the Cowboys defence to hold their footing, he should try a one-yard sneak. In the subsequent play, Packers lineman Jerry Kramer took out Jethro Pugh, his opposite number, leaving a gap for Starr to burrow over the line for the game-winning touchdown.

It was a brave play, but Lombardi was of the opinion that if his players were incapable of making a single yard they didn’t deserve to be champions. “Well then run it and let’s get the hell out of here,” he declared with a laugh, when Starr suggested the audacious quarterback sneak that sealed a third historic title for the Packers. With just 13 seconds left on the clock, for one team at least it was a heartwarming end to the coldest contest in NFL history.