Christmas, 1913 part 2

Extract from Christmas, 1913 Part 2

Football

Another disastrous season! We are a long time waiting for the little players to grow into big ones, and until they do we cannot hope to meet our old-time opponents on equal terms.  Last year we had to deplore the absence of big fast players, but now matters are even worse in this respect.

Really we have about half-a-dozen boys in our first team who are quite good – for their size, by so different is the personnel of the team from which represented us five or six years ago that the second eleven of that time contained bigger boys than the first eleven does now.

The consequence is that we are out-paced, literally run over in every match.  Yet the football is not at all bad.  There is more pluck all round than there was last year.  Twelve months ago the lack of that supreme quality was pointed out in this page, and apparently with good result, for members of this season’s team are not open to the same reproach.

The loss of Madeley has been very severely felt.  He played in only two matches, but his form on those occasions and in the Old Boys’ team stamped him as a goalkeeper above school class.  Probably had he been playing the tale of goal against us would have been fifty per cent less.

Potts is only a little one, comparatively, but he is a rare good player – one of the most skilful backs we have had for some seasons.  Lycett’s vigour has been effectual on several occasions, and so has the commendable pertinacity of Hobson.  Binks Welsh and Hampton have done well too.

The Second team has suffered owing to the vicissitudes of the first.  There is satisfactory material for building up a good eleven, young but clever enough, if only the same boys could play together every week.  But the calls made upon them to fill vacancies in the first time have spoiled the side altogether and had a most disheartening effect.  Like the first eleven, the second have not, up to the present, won a single match, although they have more than once come very near it.


Letters to the Editors.

To the Editors of the “Bridge.”

Dear Sirs,
May we be allowed to inquire why the Literary and Debating Society has, to all appearances, ceased to exist?  Two years ago this Society was a flourishing institution which held many successful meetings, the most notable being the inter-debate with Aston Grammar School.  We all think it a great pity that the Society has been allowed to fall into abeyance, and it is our own firm opinion that, with the assistance of a master, it would be possible to re-form the Society, with the greatest probability of regaining its former prosperity.
Yours etc.,
T. L. Fletcher, D. E. Cunningworth, C. G. Holden, M. Le V, Struth, L. C. K. Ashton