IS FOOTBALL BRUTAL?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1196, 1 February 1895, Page 9

IS FOOTBALL BRUTAL?

From Oar Own Correspondent. London", December 14.

Is football brutal P was a dull season question whilst the writer was yet in tunics, and it is still on hand. I have played in dozens of games, both Rugby and Sookor,” andean answer boldly from my own experience that “ footer ” as played in the Old Country is not brutal. I have received much worse injuries in tennis and water-polo than any reoeivod on the football field. But still I should bo loth to play the game in America, for thoro brutality seems to be the greater part of the game, if one may judge from the aocounts of the Hale-Harvard matah played a month ago in the pjpaenoo of twenty-three thousand spectators. Read those oxoorpts: “ The great feature of the game was what may fairly be oalled its brutality. In all six men, evenly divided botwoen the two sidos, were oarriod off the field injured. Mu oh of tho trouble was evidently oausod by bad fooling, between the two olovens. It is said that Murphy, Yale’s right tackle, struok Mackie, and the fariper was found lator lying unconscious on the field after a scrimmage, because, struckj it is said, by Mackio, who gave him a tvemendoqs upper out on the chin. Tho blow •vyeakened Murphy so that lie afterwards left tho field on a stretaher. Ho will probably recover soon. There was a rumour that Murphy was dead, but this was proved untrue. Later on a, fight between Hayes an<| Armstrong disqualified both men. The other two Yale players injured were Butterworthand Terreus, both of whom had badly strained legs and were generally battered up. Butterworth’s right arm was badly scratched, and it is not known, how soon he can play again, as he has had, much trouble with his eyes. The worst injured man was Wrightington, Harvard’s half-back, whose collar-bone was broken bybeing tackled whilst running with tho ball, it being said that he was jumped on after he was down. Brewer, of Harvard, also had his leg wrenohed, and Hallowell had his nos* broken.” This is a pretty list of mishaps (P) for an inter-’Varsity game. The Americans are very fond of comparing Yale and Harvard with the universities of the Old Country, but wo should scarcely Jje proud of those instutions if their athletic rivalry led to suoh “ games ” as that which took place in Hampden Park* Mass., November 24th, 1894.