Village Football
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Village Football
from The Barwicker No.74
"The great social interest of the last few
weeks has been the rise and progress of the
Barwick Association Football Club. It has
already become a most popular institution, every
Saturday afternoon has its match, and there are
few fine days when some enthusiastic spirits do
not have a kick-up on the field. The village
owes a great deal to Mr William Robshaw, who is
so good as to let his field be used for the
purpose.
So far the football movement has been most
successful. Not in winning games, that could
hardly be expected in a club in its infancy.
But, in the enthusiasm that it has called out,
and in the general behaviour on the ground, there
is room for a great deal of congratulation. It
is with the hope that the present good feeling
and good tone may be preserved that we make these
remarks. We all know how football clubs often go
down in the world, and how often they do more
harm than good.
One great evil is betting. It is doing
incalculable mischief in every kind of sport, so
much that it is often impossible for a
conscientious man to take an active interest in
it. All these evils have their beginnings, which
are of the smallest, and we would beg our village
enthusiasts to watch jealously against the
suspicion of betting. This of course is the
parent of the ruffianism that almost every
Saturday disgraces some football fields in the
North of England, the worst passions have been
aroused by the greed of betting, and
disappointment of gain issues in disturbance and
fighting.
A further evil is the use of foul
language. This is a vice far less common in
Barwick than in most places, and certainly, so
far as our players are concerned, there has been
no complaint of it on the football field, they
are too self-respecting, and have a better
notion of what is right than to give way to it.
But it wants discouraging on the part of others,
and we hope that it may become a strict rule that
it shall never be allowed on our ground, that our
own players shall jealously protect the credit of
their club and of their village, and be as keen
to keep the game free from all reproach as they
are to win it. There will then be little danger
of the present enthusiasm dying out, or of the
present good tone being lost."
Where have we heard this before? How
often do we see letters like this printed in
our national and local newspapers? Not OUR
team, of course! And if they get a dig in
about the North, well, so much the better.
And it never happened in the good old days,
did it?
Think again! This article was
written by the Barwick rector, Rev. Frederick
Selincourt Colman, in the parish magazine of
March 1902.
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