Song of the Football Cup (Eton 1890)

Found- a rare pamphlet Song of the Football Cup (Ingalton Drake, Eton 1890) by R. Carr Bosanquet, with music composed by Joseph Barnby. The whole song goes thus:

Mustering under the old red wall, less than year ago 
(The sky that day was sullen and gray the frost lay hard below,)
Each of us vow'd he would conquer or fall, facing the friendly foe; 
Our hearts we steel'd as we took the field, and felt our pulses glow.

Mustering under the old red wall, less than year ago etc.,

Remember the struggle that won the game! Remember the charge we made,
When only a minute was left to us to win it was e'er a man afraid?
Lock'd in a mass on the ball we came, between the cheering hosts, 
Like a roaring wind on their long behind, and drove it through the posts.

Mustering under the old red wall, less than year ago etc.,

Tho' almost done, tho' almost dead, we knew that we should win;
With lightning pace and stern-set face and crash of shin on shin;
Then shout till you shiver the beams o'erhead, shout till you shake the sky
We've won! for my tutor's the king among Pewters and still we'll do or die!

Mustering under the old red wall, less than year ago etc.,

And year after year, as body and soul are plunged in the sterner strife, 
As pleasures and pains, losses and gains, sadden or gladden our life;
Tho' scatter'd where'er from pole to pole our conquering flags unfurl'd,
In darkest December we still shall remember the noblest game in the world!

Mustering under the old red wall, less than year ago etc.,

R. Carr Bosanquet, later a distinguished archaeologist,  makes into the DNB  and even Wikipedia although there is no mention of this rousing football chant. While at Eton he edited The Parachute and later the rare anthology Seven Summers: An Eton Medley. He was related to the distinguished cricketer Bernard Bosanquet, the inventor of the Googly. The cricketer's son was the amusing and fun-loving BBC presenter Reginald "Reggie" Bosanquet. The reference to 'the king among Pewters' probably refers to sporting trophies..

Sports that didn’t quite take off

Number 9, Roller Tennis

This snap of a doubles match shows that along with previous sports in this series, which included Naked Petanque, Championship Dwarf throwing and Crown Green Tiddlywinks, Roller Tennis just lacked the appeal of Roller-skating or….Tennis.

First there were the health and safety concerns. How, for instance, did competitors prevent themselves from being garrotted by the net if they failed to stop in time? Also, experts contend that death may be averted if a vehicle travelling in an urban area hits a person at thirty miles an hour or less. They didn’t say anything about doubles players wielding rackets sustaining serious head, arm or leg injuries colliding at high speed while going for the same ball.

The photograph, which was rescued from a press archive, comes with no explanatory information. It probably dates from the 1930s, when someone fuelled on Pimms thought it might be a rather spiffing idea. Thoughts of popularising the new sport  might have ended  following the first fatality, but a very recent You Tube amateur video shows a doubles match somewhere in Europe in which a blonde looking suspiciously Swedish talks to camera about having fun playing tennis on roller skates.

If players can avoid falling into the net while attempting a drop shot, perhaps the sport does have a future. But don’t hold your breath.  

The Revd. Sidney Swann - A Muscular Christian

An old edition of Who's Who reveals that The Revd. Sidney Swann, M.A., born in 1862, rowed in the Oxford and Cambridge boat race in 1883, 1884 and 1885, won the Cambridge sculls and pairs and the Grand Challenge in 1886 and 1887 and, in record time, the Steward's in 1885 and 1887. He also, in Japan, "won most things started for on land and sea; rowing, hurdling, cycling, running, pole-jumping, weight and hammer." We learn that he was the first to cycle round Syria, that he rode from Land's End to John O'Groats and from Carlisle to London in a day, that he rowed a home-made boat from Crosby Vicarage down the rapids of the Eden to the sea and that he cut the record from England to France in 1911 by rowing the Channel in 3 hours and 50 minutes "faster than anyone had ever gone between England and France by muscular power". He built several flying machines, and drove motor ambulances in Belgium winning three medals. In 1917, when 55 years old, he cycled, walked, ran, paddled, rode and swam six consecutive half-miles in 26 minutes 20 seconds in competition with a certain Lieutenant Muller of the Danish Army.

 He eventually became very eccentric and was persuaded in 1937 to retire. Committed to a mental asylum he escaped, remarried after his first wife died, and finally died himself after falling off his bicycle (in 1942). John Julius Norwich has a lot more on the highly competitive Swann in his 1975 Christmas Cracker - in old age he appears to have become a slightly  daunting figure in Lindfield...

In 1911 the Revd. Swann crossed from Dover
to Cap Griz Nez in 3 hours and 50 minutes

A Story of the Olympics (1924)

Britain's Best. A Story of the Olympic Games (Diamond Library, London 1920) 

A flimsy story pamphlet with no author noted. The plucky story of George Compton of the Littenden Harriers. 'His form was simply amazing, in the first race he defeated some 20 competitors.. his time for the (100 metre) sprint was an astonishing 10.3 seconds, 5 tenth of a second inside the Olympic record...to say that Azra Arnold was savage at losing is but feebly to express the feelings that raged inside his breast...' A mysterious conspiracy follows to stop him running in the Olympics.  The book ends "Oh yes I intend to complete again at the next Olympic meeting in 1924, when I hope to retain my place as record holder for the two short sprints; for I mean to keep up my training...I hope to see Great Britain do even better in the 1924 Olympic Games.'