This town in Jersey is the dividing line between Eagles and Giants country

BORDENTOWN, N.J. — Sometimes, when Tyrone Johnson is shopping for groceries, or out to dinner with his wife, he’ll see New York Giants fans. He’d prefer not to.

He’ll catch them droning on about past glories — ”Four super bowls” — or, with an air of misplaced hope that borders on delusion, discussing their future — ”Did you see Danny Dimes last night?” Some of them even talk about the Mets. The Mets.

Johnson, 42, makes a living talking sports as the host of The Best Show Ever on 97.5 The Fanatic. He grew up in Pennsauken, in Camden County, where he figures 95% of the people are Eagles fans. Fifteen years ago, Johnson moved to Bordentown, in Burlington County, and while it’s less than 30 miles north of his hometown, the fandom demographics are much different.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s 60-40 up here with Eagles fans taking the edge,” Johnson told The Inquirer Friday before his afternoon show.

As the Giants travel south down the New Jersey Turnpike to Lincoln Financial Field, where they’ve lost nine straight games, they will be leaving familiar territory in North Jersey and crossing into Eagles country — not far from where Johnson lives.

The easiest way to divide the state is to think of Interstate 195 as a sort of belt across its midsection, running east and west from the Trenton area to the Jersey Shore. The geographical center of the state — a tree farm in New Egypt — sits just south of the highway. Bordentown does, too. It’s a strange, in-between world some call Central Jersey.

Johnson moved in 2008 because his wife’s family was from Hamilton, a little farther north of Bordentown, in Mercer County.

“I made sure they were Eagles fans,” he said.

Everyone in Bordentown knows a Giants fan, though. A postal carrier said he sees mostly Eagles supporters but recalled seeing some Giants flags on Van Drive and maybe even a fan bus. When The Inquirer drove around the street, the only fan in sight was a woman in an Eagles jacket walking a shih tzu.

“Hell no,” the postal carrier, who asked not to be identified, said when asked if he was a Giants fan. “Birds, baby.”

At the Town Barber Shop, on Farnsworth Avenue, an Eagles fan getting his hair cut was more nervous about the game than the Giants supporter in the waiting area.

“You guys are going to kill us,” said Frank Wilcox, 54, a Long Island native who now lives in Bordentown.

Jim Woidell, the Eagles fan getting the trim, said he was originally from Pitman, in “South Jersey,” where “it’s all Eagles fans.”

“It used to be everyone totally for the Birds around here too,” the retired educator said. “It’s changed.”

As with all things sports-related, someone has analyzed this to death. Both Twitter and Facebook produced fandom maps in recent years that showed Pennsylvania, while mostly a Pittsburgh Steelers state, had a wide array of rooting interests, including, of course, the Eagles, the Baltimore Ravens in York County, and a swath of Buffalo Bills in the state’s northwest counties. The Poconos was lousy with Giants fans.

The social media maps split Jersey between the Giants and Eagles, but the dividing line is more nuanced there, more like a yin and yang symbol than a hard border. Eagles fans reach farther north on the western half of the state, while Giants fans encroach farther south, along the Shore, into Long Beach Island.

The social media fandom map follows lines similar to one drawn up by Steve Chernoski, a New Jersey educator and director of New Jersey: The Movie. He believes the map is not only a perfect representation of sports fandom, it’s also pretty accurate on language and culture: who says “hoagie” vs. “sub” or “Taylor ham” and “pork roll.”

“The question I wonder is whether has it always been this way, or did the housing bubble or real estate prices affect this,” he said of the map.

Chernoski believes real estate prices in New York City and North Jersey may drive Giants or Mets fans south, to our world, looking for cheaper homes and vacations.

“There’s way too many Giants fans in Brigantine,” he said.

On Saturday night, there may be too many in Chickie’s & Pete’s on Route 130, too. The Bordentown bar is where the civilizations clash.

“I mean, we’re right on the I-195 cusp,” general manager Steve Keiluhn said. “I live 30 minutes south of here and there’s no Giants fan there.”

Keiluhn said everyone’s usually well-behaved when the two cities clash, but Giants fans, he noticed, are feeling confident. He’ll have a bouncer on the door.

“Just in case,” he said.