Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    756/896 (page 68)
    the upper part of the body as well as the lower, and, as a moral training, it seems also preferable, as there seems more scope for manly forbearance and good temper in its hearty rough-and- tumble struggles. The game might be improved, however, in a way calculated to lessen the risks of strain and crush, without taking away the good features by lessening the tight scrimmages as much as possible, and by encouraging a greater amount of dribbling. One way to do this would be, as was suggested already, to allow running with the ball only from a free catch (i.e., direct from the opponent's foot, before the ball has touched the ground), or on the first or second bound. The forwards at least might be thus restricted, and they should be en- joined not to avail themselves of even these privileges on all occasions, but to aim rather at concerted rushes in loose-scrimmage order; a plan of attack which is more effective than individual runs, even with good chucking, while it is much more interest- ing to spectators. The objections to the tight scrimmages are that a very great deal of exertion is required with very little result; that any player getting on the ground might be seriously twisted or bruised by the wedged mass of his opponents surging over him, and that it forms a meaningless and uninteresting spectacle to lookers on. A mode of holding an opponent by the neck and twisting his body on to the ground, known familiarly as scragging, is strongly to be deprecated. It is not, at present, considered good play, but as there is no rule against it, the sooner it comes to be classed with deliberate hacking and expunged altogether, the better for the game. This is the more necessary when we remember that the great beauty and attraction of football is that it is, to a certain extent, rough and, within limits, even violent: otherwise it would not be the grand winter game that it is, avail- able in all weathers, except in frost and snow, giving exercise, short, sharp, and bracing, and offering an indescribable charm and fascination to youths and young men whose glory is in their strength and who rejoice as a strong man to run a race. Now as to the dangers of football. What we have been speak- ing of to-night up to the present is the dangerspf football as carried on at schools, and I hope I have been able to show you that here