Ivanhoe on the Football Nuisance

March 1879

Mexborough and Swinton Times, March 14 1879.

Notes from Conisbrough.

Where? Where?, Where is Ivanhoe! This enquiry has oft been made, during the past few weeks by those who are heartily tired of the footballing nuisance.

Scarcely had it been possible to walk any distance among the streets during any portion of the day (except those hours when the juveniles are confined in school) without been annoyed by a too close acquaintanceship with empty salmon or lobster tins. With these innocent little articles as a substitute for a ball, the only thing the youngsters want is a goal.

By and bye they spy a young lady coming along, and with well calculated aim, the velvety edge of the tin comes in contact with the young ladies eye. A sharp cry of pain brings from a score throats at once the exclamation “sarved her reight she should get out o´t way.”

Scarcely is this scene over before a gentleman in broadcloth is seen approaching, and his legs are at once mistaken for the goalposts, and away again goes the tin, and deposits upon his trousers something less than half a pound of that very agreeable substance vulgarly called mud.

An epitaph stronger than delicate escapes the victim, much to the delight of the jubilant perpetrators of such an innocent joke.

But, passing from the juveniles, what is this, we are constantly hearing, concerning parties visiting the neighbourhood to play. Only a short time ago, a party of football players, on their return homeward after playing, amused themselves by breaking the windows of houses on the roadside; and last Saturday night within a few miles of Conisbrough, the gates each side of the Turnpike road, for the distance of nearly a mile, were removed from their hinges and placed in the centre of the road.

So enamoured of these enthusiasts become of shin breaking, that they can enjoy with evident gusto even the anticipation of the fracturing of horses legs and the maiming and probably killing of the occupants of any vehicle that may chance to travel in their track, could but add zest to their innocent freak.

How very humanising this game of football is; and, how manly yet gentle and kind does it make its devotees. What tender impulse throbbed in the breasts of those, who on Saturday night last, covered the hard Turnpike road with those nice soft downy gates.

Oh ye Christian, ye amiable , ye tender hearted, yet noble football players!

But remember in irony, ye are called thus by

Ivanhoe