The 12th man or 12th player is a term for the fans within a stadium during association football or American football games. This term has a different meaning in cricket, referring instead to the first substitute player who fields when a member of the fielding side is injured. As most football leagues allow a maximum of eleven players per team on the playing field at a time, referring to a team's fans as the 12th man implies that they have a potentially helpful role in the game. In American football, the first documented use of the term "twelfth man" was in an alumni publication of The University of Iowa in 1912 in reference to its fans. The first documented use of the term "12th Man", and the first use of the term to reference an individual, E. King Gill of Texas A&M University occurred in