Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Rugger's an Attacking Games
    Rugger's an Attacking Games
    Rugger's an Attacking Games
    Ebook147 pages2 hours

    Rugger's an Attacking Games

    By Peter Lawless

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781473356962
    Rugger's an Attacking Games

    Related to Rugger's an Attacking Games

    Related ebooks

    Sports & Recreation For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Memoirs Of A Fox

      Jan 1, 2019

      My year of graduate work in Cambridge, England was a somewhat bleak and desperate affair, coinciding with a bout of depression that could perhaps have been shortened or ameliorated if I had been assigned hard agricultural labor, a daily column of loc

      14 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 15, 2022

      Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Around The World In 100 Plants

      Oct 26, 2022

      Simon Barnes (Simon & Schuster, £30) WE have become used, in recent years, to the convention of 100 short essays as a means of raising the reader’s eyebrows and setting away a never-ending series of big ideas from the starting point of an everyday o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Farewell, Old Friend

      Jun 22, 2018

      Farewell, Old Friend
      4 min read

    • Article

      England’s Fair And Pleasant Land

      Feb 23, 2023

      JONATHAN DUKE-EVANS TELLS US that the first recorded use of the phrase “fair play” is to be found in an obscure mid-fourteenth-century poem called Titus & Vespasian. Having taken their leave and went their way, “He thanked [t]hem of [t]here faire pla

      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 21, 2022

      Readers’ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Nov 7, 2021

      Vol 2: The French Army 1870 By Robert J Marrion & Steve Shann ISBN: 978-1858185774 (Partizan Press, 2021) – £35.00 Thanks to the recent Perry releases, I’ve been painting miniatures for Franco Prussian War games, and now I have a uniform guide for th

      6 min read

    • Article

      Sportswriting: A 2,000-Year History

      Jan 22, 2018

      Sportswriting didn’t start with early 20th-century newspaper columnists talking fast and wearing hats with the word “press” written on the brim. The origins of the genre go way, way back past the historical warning track— hunting stories in pictorial

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Kind Of Loving

      Mar 25, 2021

      A Kind Of Loving
      12 min read

    • Article

      Last Portion Of Chips

      Sep 21, 2022

      Last Portion Of Chips
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 25, 2024

      Letters
      13 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Aug 13, 2020

      Write to: The Editor, The Field, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF. Email: field.secretary@futurenet.com LETTERS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY OR SPACE Dr Hannah Clark’s article was excellent [Huntin

      7 min read

    • Article

      England’s Fair And Pleasant Land

      Feb 23, 2023

      JONATHAN DUKE-EVANS TELLS US that the first recorded use of the phrase “fair play” is to be found in an obscure mid-fourteenth-century poem called Titus & Vespasian. Having taken their leave and went their way, “He thanked [t]hem of [t]here faire pla

      4 min read

    • Article

      From Surtees, To Spectres

      Dec 7, 2023

      From Surtees, To Spectres
      6 min read

    • Article

      Browsing By A Fire In A Faraway Bothy

      May 11, 2022

      Modern reading habits have changed — or, perhaps more accurately, the plethora of books and articles readily available via the internet have altered people’s reading habits. It’s not only the way we read; it’s how much time we spend doing so. In busy

      5 min read

    • Article

      Friends For Life

      Feb 16, 2022

      I DON’T accept the old adage ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. I buy books I already own when I see a new edition with a wonderful cover. Then there is the title. Imagine our debt of gratitude to Ezra Pound, who edited a young poet and made him dump

      5 min read

    • Article

      Reader's Letter

      May 31, 2023

      SIR: I was astonished to read (Spring issue) that Hunter Davies believes he may be the only person left in the UK who has milk delivered in glass bottles every morning. Oop ’ere in t’north, we have milk delivered in this way. We also have Ringtons Te

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Signpost

      Sep 1, 2019

      The Signpost
      5 min read

    • Article

      Thanks For Coming

      Oct 2, 2019

      Thanks For Coming
      2 min read

    • Article

      Names In The Frame

      May 25, 2023

      IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO LOVE a book that begins by comparing Ronnie O’Sullivan’s embrace with Judd Trump at the end of the 2022 World Snooker Championship with Bill Murray’s unheard whisper to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation (2003

      3 min read

    • Article

      Finding Facts In Fiction

      Mar 12, 2021

      Finding Facts In Fiction
      10 min read

    • Article

      Man About Town

      Oct 28, 2021

      AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MONTH, I burst my chains of domestic bondage, Samson-like, and escaped hotfoot to Soho to sip white wine with ruffians to celebrate Dan Jones’s excellent new book, Powers and Thrones. Jones is one of these prolific coves who c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Roll Of Honour

      Jan 22, 2018

      A memorial to Sir David Stirling, who founded the SAS. Montgomery reportedly said of him: “The boy Stirling is quite mad, quite, quite mad. However, in a war there is often a place for mad people.” “THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AND DIED IN THESE OPERATIONS WE

      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 24, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS The very interesting report on ‘Man Of Russia’ and his outlandish claims about giant trees [FT415:9] got me thinking

      14 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Rugger's an Attacking Games

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Rugger's an Attacking Games - Peter Lawless

      1946.

      1

      An old ’un looks over the fence

      CAPITAL indeed, werry good indeed, most beautiful in fect, as Mr. Jorrocks would have said. Quite unexpectedly I saw tall Rugby posts, fresh-painted, springing into the blue sky.

      Summer nights are touched with the grey of autumn mists; there will be two crowded Saturdays, fantastically piebald with cricket, tennis and rugger, all in full swing at once; then the immemorial feuds will fill the brief, glorious afternoons.

      My dog sniffed the new-mown grass, and tore in ecstatic circles, whilst I leaned against the gate and lit my pipe.

      Was there ever such a unique, indescribable smell as that of new Rugby Jerseys? Can any bath compare with the communal splashing of staunch friends, blurred by clouds of steam? Rugger—man’s primeval instinct to struggle, fully satisfied without deliberate bloodshed.

      Forty feet of rails gave way to a roar of, Up Devon! and a wave of spectators rolled down the banked cinder-track as the Devon forwards came away with the ball at their feet. They were playing Durham, after drawing at 3 points all in the North, only to draw again. We played it all over anew in a field at Dawlish next day, and a big boy—Spider we called him—handed me off so that I sat down heavily with my eyes full of tears. Stoker Woods did the same thing to me many years afterwards in an Army v. Navy match at Twickenham. So are the ignorance of youth and the follies of age paid in full.

      They were a great pack, that Devon lot—Tom Kelly, Dobbs, Mills and Co.—with seven of them getting English caps. Frank Sellicks, most knowledgeable of critics, led them at one time. They were as fast to break as any modern pack, for only the front row bound; but they could all shove, as well as get about the field.

      To my chagrin my housemaster thought little of them, and in my seat at the junior table I used to go hot and cold with fury as he shattered my idols in airy criticism with the heads of the house.

      Well, he ought to have known. He was E. Hastings Dasent, the greatest of coaches, and turned out those magnificent Bedford School sides which went unbeaten for many long seasons. J. G. Milton, H. H. Vassall, Basil Maclear and Freddy Brooks were amongst those who owed much of their genius to him. He was an acid critic. Of one of England’s greatest half-backs he wrote, after a disaster at Lansdowne Road Many have gained a bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth;—lost one at Paddy’s foot.

      Now the All Blacks of 1905 are sweeping down the field, the giant Gallagher and Seelig standing out amongst a pack who could handle to a man like the outsides. They were a rousing sight when the whole side took a hand in a try—black quicksilver. Basil Maclear, with the torso of Hercules, fair moustache, and white gloves, played some memorable games against them. . . .

      Game follows game in the dusk: Richmond v. Blackheath, with the ancients nodding their heads and remembering; now the Army, with the pick of the Woolwich and Sandhurst sides who have so recently torn each other to pieces, thunder against the Navy. That frail stand-off, with all the outward features of a stage curate but the heart of a lion, working always to the left as he gets Kershaw’s cannon-ball pass, is W. J. A. Davies, endeavouring to slip the attentions of the great Army forwards, Usher, Lacey, and Craven, and snap a drop goal. The monumental forward with the sloping shoulders is Dreadnought Harrison, who in his time played for both the Army and the Navy.

      Was Stoop a greater stand-off half than W. J. A. Davies? Upon that critics will never agree. Certain it is that Stoop made more centres than Davies, and that’s a pretty good test. I suppose few players have been more attractive than the brilliant, nimble Cliff Jones. He, of all the players I have seen, could dance either way at will.

      Here are the London Scottish, welcome exiles in the south, thudding Harlequin ribs to a storm of Feet, Scottish, Feet; Leicester sides thrilling the Welford Road multitude with their short hand-to-hand passing; great Gloucester sides dominating the west; ’Varsity matches at Queen’s, with B. L. Jacot thrusting his way to an Oxford victory in the last match played there. . . .’Varsity matches at Twickenham . . . Internationals . . . hilarious Barbarians’ tours. Oh, joyous prospect, joyous memories.

      That tall three-quarter, who plays with the same insolent laziness with which Padgham plays golf, is Harry Vassall. His fellow centre, with the fair hair, who waves the ball in front of him, is Poulton Palmer, rhapsodising on a concertina. . . . Masters of half-back stratagem, Jago and Peters; Cherry Pillman taking a cross-kick from the diminutive C. N. Lowe in a blinding snowstorm to flash over and score; Bruno Brown bobbing through the defence like a cork in a mill-race; thousands cheering themselves hoarse as Arthur Young, from the base of the scrum, has exploited his impish impudence to the utmost to score under the posts.

      Now, joy, here is a game with Liddell, Ian Smith, Gibbs and Obolensky so that we shall know at last who is the fastest of them. . . . But the dog is back nuzzling my knees and saying Come on, master, so we stroll home through the long shadows as teams and personalities jostle each other in the delighted mind. Ian Smith and Obolensky are tearing down the wings, and there are more giant, bronzed sides from overseas. Then, suddenly, sweeping the might of Scotland before them, are these grand Irish forwards of 1939, plastered from head to foot with the mud of Lansdowne Road. . . . What a great game it is, arousing those darned old emotions which never die and never end till the last no side.

      Are there too many laws? Is the game becoming clogged with them? So many of them, too, save the unfair player from painful correction at the feet of his fellows. Time was when the hooker who essayed doubtful methods mended his ways or was helped to the touch-line to nurse his wounds, probably in company with some exponent of viciousness in the line-out who had also received correctional violence. Now, with close on thirty points to be observed before the ball is put into the scrum, hooked and heeled, the referee has become a cross between a school marm and a constable, sapping the essential virility of the game with his constant whistle.

      Let’s have thirty strong men who know the game, and, for once, no referee. Then I’ll wager, we’d see the game as it should be: a searching test of wits and force truly applied, with all sharp practice trampled beneath the studs of the righteous.

      2

      Growing pains

      BETWEEN his first game of marbles and his last game of bowls the average man suffers amazing discomfort to wind and limb in the pursuit of sport. Following marbles, or preceding it according to the season of his birth and consequent Dame School blooding, came conkers in which it is a hundred to one that some potential poker player caught him a clout on the knuckles with a cast iron conker inherited from his grandfather and had disappeared from view before the tears had been swept from the loser’s eyes.

      There were, of course, other games about this period; pirates, secret societies and grim slabs of underworld life. To this day the smell of burning paint from a penny dark lantern gives me a bigger thrill than the Grand National.

      Next came the Prep. School where in light chrome boots (the Kikka, price four and sixpence per pair) we were introduced to soccer. We wore, too, those blue serge shorts hanging slightly too far over the knees—how they irritated the juvenile thighs. The school jersey was worn over the winter vest and did not worry us much. I never see Dixie Dean score a goal without wondering whether his shorts are irritating him.

      Summer brought us cricket with white flannels, baggy at the knee, inevitably stained with grass and showing three inches of sock with a visible hole in the heel, and sandshoes, defying the Blanco, eternally grey.

      We had been captains of soccer and cricket when our parents left us after that hastily gulped down lunch, five bob to the good—then a London train with a handkerchief still waving from it as it rounded the corner out of sight.

      A lot our Prep. school prowess helped us then. Six months’ growth’s a devil of a lot when you start to learn that most painful of games—Rugger. By the time no side came our faces were sore, our ears torn and our necks twisted. But the Christmas holidays found us explaining how we nearly scored a try and were certain of a trial with the Colts next year.

      The Easter term saw us plodding dismally along country roads in shorts and jersey—vestless by now following an unpleasant interview with a prefect who had used the word Stinker—training for the sports and steeplechase. Perhaps we were third in something—it’s a long time ago now. But, oh! those East winds of the Easter Term.

      But the glorious summer was before us and had not an uncle with an M.C.C. tie given us one of his bats?

      The junior cricket game was not impressed with our record and less with our performance. We went in last wicket and received a ball which we were convinced Hobbs could not have played. The next day, crouched behind the stumps in a pair of flimsy white gloves, most inadequately padded, we stopped bowling, considerably faster than we had known before, with every part of our anatomy.

      But time passed quickly in those days. From a confused medley of bitterly contested house matches there arises one memory which will last us all our mortal days. We are playing for the school against Richmond A. Some one has passed us the ball. Quite clearly above the shouting we hear Crash at it. Our Housemaster, now second only to our father amongst the heroes of the day. Obediently we crash. So does the Richmond full-back, but we emerge, bleeding a trifle from the lip, to hear the old familiar roar we’ve helped to swell so long. What a day! Oh, for a tail to wag!

      Some weeks later, outside the tuck-shop, ignoring the obvious risk to us of permanent dyspepsia, the Captain shook us by the hand, congratulated us on our colours and left us, our mouth full of iced-bun, before we could stammer our blushing thanks.

      The Christmas holidays were all impatience now, we were dying to be at it again. There were the sports and that Mecca of school boxers, Aldershot. What a pity that great meeting is no more.

      We had our first lesson in the great game of bluff that last term. Heavyweight? said the gym. instructor of the school we were visiting to play the superheating game of angles, fives, the week before Aldershot. He looked us up and down. Well, if our heavyweight hits you on the ankle he’ll stun you. What a punch!

      But pleurisy put us down for the count and from a warm bed in the school sanatorium we gave ourselves the verdict after three terrific rounds.

      It was a little difficult to find our feet in London.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1