FOOTBALL.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 301, 24 June 1909, Page 4

FOOTBALL.

V YESTERDAY'S M^TCH. (To tke Editor.) Sir,— One" cannot compliment the crowd on their behaviour yests-rday at the Rec. Football is p*lay<*l for sport, but the hoodlums yesterday wanted to turn the exhilarating game of Rugby into a game of kick ; the man, not. the ball. Cannot our local union do something in respect to keeping .the ground clear? -.Surely they could instruct their referees to take the teams off the ground. . - I think if the referee does this. -once they would have no - more trouble. The way some of the t>rutes • yesterday hooted the defenceless referee was disgraceful. Many who were on the line yesterday set themselves up as authorities on football, but they know as much about football 'as my foot, and are too lazy and too incapable to play themselves, 01' whistle. I hav# followed up football all my life, 'and of course take a great interest in the game; also I have read the rules governing the game, and should know what t am writing about. I must say tEe referee was absolutely fair. Welly Sir, I took a walk up and down the: line and tried to keep the line «lear> and I noticed a burly bushwhacker with fists on him like-40- pound hammers. This man was. hurling all sorts of insults to the referee and enticing- the players'to play the men; not the ball, firing exhortations such as this: "Bung it in 1" "Give that fellow a crack ! " Where the b- is . the referee's whistle?", etc. My Scotch blood boiled (what little there is in me) and walking up to tKe offender asked him to have some sense." • He quickly looked me up and. down, and asked me what the devil. l had to do with it. My courageous . -spirit dropped within me, as 1 was, not iponrersant with- the Marquis of •Queensbury rules (even if I was an authority on Rugby). I cleared to the other side, but not without a parting shot that although he was a burly bushwhacker there was no occasion for him to air off hie bush nran.n=>r in a respectable town like Dannevirke. — I am, etc., , SCQTTY.