The Underworld of Sport
By R. G. G. PRICE jUNIOR games in a private school have the duration of hell without the literary flavour. Obe cannot console oneself by saying to one's fellow-sufferers, " This reminds me of Dante." They are usually taken by the more scholarly members of the staff while the hearties, ill at ease with dictation or elementary arithmetic, come into their own, getting the best pitches, the best equipment and players who want to play. When 1 used to struggle with a game called " the Dump." I tried to console myself by muttering, " Well, I am half-way through Proust " ; but it was a poor consolation, and I knew it. In football things got to such a point that the headmaster would roam the town rounding up conscripts, who dribbled on to the field throughout the game. To begin with, I would try to apportion late-corners fairly between the two sides ; but before long team-divisions would break down, with both sides uniting against the referee.
Even the rowdiest form can usually be held in the classroom if the master keeps his back firmly against the door. In time it is possible to hold them in their desks, and with the passing of years even a moderate disciplinarian can make sure that, when he says the lesson is French, for the great majority of the form French it is. Discipline on the field is quite different. Taking one's first game. one places a lot of reliance on the whistle. It seems an insignia of authority, linking one to the world of the Football Association, the Police and the men who handicap trams. Unfortunately, it is only a convention ; it has no offensive power. My pupils treated it as background music. The only way to bring them to a pause and make announcements about the progress of the game was to collar the ball myself, and this, with anything up to fifty more suitably dressed players against me. was very difficult.
I had bought a copy of the rules when I became a school- master, thinking my literary education would help me to master them quickly and thus give me a permanent advantage. " The Dump," however, followed local rules which were not in the printed edition. Fouls, for example, were dealt with by holding down the offender and letting the captain of the opposing side foul back. As there were usually several captains, some arbi- trarily selected by me, some chosen by acclamation, some exercising rights as form captains or dormitory monitors, we had a good number of accidents, though never enough to keep pace with the new talent scouted out by the headmaster.
As no one could hear my whistle, we never had half-time, but neighbouring games did, and more expert players would appear as guest artists for a few minutes before rejoining their own teams. By a local rule goals scored by them counted in favour of the side against whom they were scored. The groundsman did not bother much with our pitch, which was little more than the space between other pitches and roughly octagonal in shape. Sometimes there was a flag or two at one of the corners ; the nearest goalkeeper usually pinched this, hoping to knock the ball away from the net with it. We were only a narrow footpath away from the first pitch, and once, during the most important match of the year, the ball from my game landed among the swells. For a moment or two they played with two balls, until vigorous tally-hos made them look up to see the whole of " the Dump " in full cry across their pitch. It took five minutes to get them all back, and at the end of it I found they had changed ends, which was always confusing, as by a local rule the score stayed with the end and not, as in the upper ranges of the game, with the team.
Cricket was much harder on me than football. It went on so much longer. On a fine summer afternoon we might be sent down to the field at two and told to stay there till half-past five, and as an innings in " the Dump " took under a quarter-of- an-hour, the game palled quickly. By the third time round both sides would be playing ntisere. The batting side regarded itself as off-duty, and would pretend not to notice when a batsman was out. There was no batting order, and I just hauled a new batsman on at random. The fielders also regarded themselves as off-duty, and would edge further and further from the wicket until they were able to pose as members of the batting side.
There were only two methods of being out—caught and bowled. L.b.w. was no use, as whenever the ball touched a batsman he retired hurt. 1 had never mastered wides and byes. which were put down by the scorer as his perks. By a local rule the result of the game depended on the original toss, and wides (4) and byes (6) were used to make the scores come right. There was often some doubt about whether a batsman was out- bowled, as " the Dump " did not have bails, the few in stock being reserved for teams with numbers. Once a stump broke clean off, but the batsman refused to be out ; he had been bowled by his brother, and this made him unusually obstinate about continuing to play. 1 ruled that if there had been bails they would obviously have fallen off ; but he insisted that the stump had been sawn through overnight. The only way I.could get him out was to put him on to bowl himself.
It was not safe to be anywhere near the wicket, and I usually umpired from the touchline, where I could also keep an eye on the batting side, whom the headmaster sometimes insisted should be on silence. After a few games I found the best way to get through the afternoon was to wait until the headmaster had gone. which was usually about three o'clock, and then to rush " the Dump " off to a snack-bar and fill them up on ices and ginger beer. They came back behaving like guests.
The supply of balls was small, and it was usually advisable for a master taking games to confiscate the necessary equipment during the week. A lost ball—it was usually found under the batting side, as in hunt-the-slipper—might bring the game to a sudden and permanent end. As the headmaster insisted on " the Dump's" giving an impression of playing when looked at from a distance, the umpire's duties were onerous. To decide whether the bails we had not got would have been dislodged by a hall we had not got either needed more than the authority provided by a wielded stump ; the whistles were always locked .up till the winter. I tried to make a local rule that there should be noslost balls while the headmaster was about but " the Dump. incontrovertibly, ,argued that whether a ball was lost was a question of fact. ;Failing on local legislation. I tried a gentle- man's agreement; but " the Dump" never behaved like gentlemen until they had been feted. and that could not barren until the headmaster had gone, when it did not matter whether we had a ball or not.
The only thing to be said for cricket was that it kept us away from the shore, which was crowded with visitors and on which the boys had to wear their best clothes and not indulge in rough games. They kept the creases in their trousers by hitching them up carefully when they bent down to pick up stones,to throw at the visitors.
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