A Spaaiard's View of Football

Bruce Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 2647, 7 May 1895, Page 1

A Spaaiard's View of Football

The gentle Spaniard, whose enjoyment of a bull-fight is one of the things which Engli-bmen fail to understand, recently had his Be_i*-ibility lacerated by the spectacle of a Rugby football match, played between teams made up of the officers of the Channel Squadron at Vigo. The game is reported in the local Spanish evening paper aa follows : — "Yesterday afternoon, at the landing plaoe, the tailors of the Briiish Squadron played at a game of football. It is a game of ball which has never been teen by us, and the excess of barbarity shown in it makes- it appear not a very attractive one. At each end of the track formed in a square, were erected two post?, those on one side representing one camp, those on the other the camp of tbe enemy. Victory belongs to the band oi combatants that succeeds ia passing an enormous ball between the posts of the enemy's camp. Tbe ball is thi own from one to anuttter of the combatants, and in this act lies all the interest of this almost ferocious diversion. He who holds the ball leans forward, and his friends and foes do the same around him in ferocious attitudes of lying-in-wait, ready to spring on their prey. He suddenly runs, hurls the ball rapidly to one of his comrades, who runs with it, those on the enemy's side endeavoring to stop him. The brutality used to throw down the odo who carries the bill could not be believed by one who had not witnessed it. He is Beized first round his waist, then by j the head, legp, and feet, rolled on tbe ground, where he wrestles and struggles with his aggressor. As the combatants of each side assist their comrades they form a chain of living bodies, one on top of the other, like a tangled skein of serpents with human heads. All are mingled together, and the pack twists and twirls, revolving on, the ground, ■• No doctor found it necessary to exorcise his calling yesterday on account of football, but the combatants were stopped at times by the judge of the field, who, attentive and diligent, stopped them with his whistle when the struggle was assuming too passionate an aspect. Abundance, however, of scratohes, woundp, tumbles, fell to the lot of the players, and, in some cases, the white and red showed on their faces the signs of combat."