Marked Increase In Rugby Is Shown In America In Fast Year

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6788, 20 February 1932, Page 13

Marked Increase In Rugby Is Shown In America In Fast Year

Rapidly gaining favour among the colleges as a spring sport, Rugby football again enjoyed a successful year, says a writer in the “New York Times” in a review of sport in the United Stales in 1931. Probably the most notable advance was at Harvard, where the athletic authorities, although withholding official recognition of the team, nevertheless permitted the use of the football stadium for the Princeton-llarvard game and indicated that the coming season would see Rugby installed as .one of the minor sports at the University. Princeton and Yale granted unofficial recognition to their teams, the line-ups of which included several prominent gridiron stars, Princeton emerging as the leading college team by defeating both Harvard and Yale twice. Yale, although winning only a single game during the season, gained the distinction of being the only team to defeat the strong New York Rugby Club. Starting the season with a victory over Yale at New York, the New York Club compiled an imposing record, winning nine games. The defeat at tiie hands of Yale at New Haven was the only blot on its record, gaining for flic club the right to he classed as the leader in the East.

Other strong organisations in tlie East included the Philadelphia Marines, the Irish Rugby Club, the French Sporting Club, and the Boston Rugby Club, while Syracuse and the University of Pennsylvania ranked just below the Big Three in college circles.