John Matthews says he was at the "Ice Bowl," and he has a piece of the goal post to prove it!

GREEN BAY (WITI) -- The most famous game between the Packers and Cowboys was played on December 31st, 1967. Over the course of about 50 years, maybe a million people say they shivered through the -46 degree wind chill to watch the NFL Championship game.

John Matthews really was there.

He says he was one of two celebrating on the goal post after Green Bay beat Dallas 21-17.

A 19-year-old UW-Milwaukee football player back then, Matthews says his family owned a supper club in the area, so they went to as many games as possible.

Matthews was a part of history, and he has a piece of it.

"It was very exciting to see that played out in what is now a classic game. I didn't think of it as a classic when I watched it. I was 19 at the time. "By the time that Bart Starr scored the winning touchdown, there was a number of fans that were actually on the sideline and a lot of us went out onto the field at that time to start celebrating -- and then they had to clear the field and finish the game. Before the game was over, we pretty much knew the goal post was coming down. It was tradition. It had to come down because they won the championship. I dashed to the goal post and started climbing up on it. When the goal post went cockeyed, there was a couple guys who fell off and there was two of us left on the post. Probably each piece had about 10, 12 or 15 guys carrying them out. You see Lambeau Field with the bleachers underneath and there's a bunch of guys carrying the goal posts right in front of the yellow bus and someone saying 'I have a hacksaw at my house. It's two blocks away. Let's go over there and cut it up.' I didn't know anybody carrying it. I'd never seen them before and I've never seen them since. I think we cut it with a hacksaw and then we got so close and couldn't quite get it off so we twisted off that last part there and it probably just collected dust in the basement for many years. I wouldn't sell this for any amount. This is too much of a memory to sell. I definitely would not give it up," Matthews said.

Matthews says in those days, you could hop over a fence to see the Packers play. If you got caught and tossed out, you just found another spot on the fence and climbed back over. That likely wouldn't go so well today!

The Packers and Cowboys play at Lambeau Field in a playoff matchup on Sunday, January 11th.