Today's Tidbit... More American Football in 1910 England
Today's Tidbit... More American Football in 1910 England
Canada remained in the UK's cultural orbit after Canada and the U.S. borrowed rugby from the UK. While both countries modified the game to suit their own purposes, Canadian rugby (later football)(remained more rugby-like than American football until after WWII). Unlike Canada, American football rules allowed the forward pass by 1910, even if most teams made little use of it, and the game remained rather rough despite numerous safety-related rules changes.
Before WWI, the British press consistently reported on American football's barbarity, boorishness, and professionalism compared to the highly developed and honorable game they saw in Rugby Union. Even worse, football was most popular among American college men, who should have known better but didn't. Of course, few in the UK who held American football in low regard had ever seen an American football game, so their interest was piqued in 1910 when they read of the death of West Virginia quarterback Rudolph Munk following WVU's game with Bethany and possibly murder charges stemming from the event. (See Today's Tidbit... Murder On The Football Field?)
The West Virginia news was followed by the announcement that the crews of American battleships visiting British ports would play games of American football games on America's Thanksgiving Day in 1910. Part of the news stories focused on the fact that the U.S.S. Idaho had challenged the U.S.S. Michigan to a game by sending a wireless radio message a distance of 130 miles, a feat that spoke to America's technological prowess as much as the dozen battleships sitting in British harbors.
As it turned out, the U.S.S. Michigan team could not be in London on Thanksgiving. The U.S.S. Idaho instead faced the U.S.S. Vermont at London's Crystal Palace on Thanksgiving Day, while the U.S.S. Michigan met the U.S.S. Connecticut in Weymouth, on England's southern coast. The Idaho and Vermont teams won those games, as detailed in Today's Tidbit... American Football at London's Crystal Palace in 1910. I was unaware of the Michigan-Connecticut game in Weymouth when I wrote that Tidbit. However, I recently picked up the battered postcard below that shows American football teams playing a "match" at Weymouth.
The teams seen in the RPPC are not identified so that it could be a game involving any of the three or four battleships at Weymouth. However, a sizable crowd surrounds the field, and a local photographer saw fit to document the game with an RPPC, so I assume it is the Michigan-Connecticut game since it is the only Weymouth contest reported in the press.
While I could not find details about the game in Weymouth, the research showed that teams from the U.S.S. Georgia and U.S.S. Rhode Island played on December 23 in Northfleet, Kent, bringing the total number of American football games in England that year to four. American football returned to the UK during WWI and WWI, but the game's current popularity in the UK has primarily resulted from the NFL's efforts in Europe and the propensity of some Brits to place bets on nearly anything.
Postscript
James Gilbert shared later images of Weymouth’s Recreation Ground. Sidney Hall is seen in the background of the image below and the RPPC.
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The Weymouth Recreation Ground, a #ForgottenField https://www.footballgroundmap.com/ground/recreation-ground/weymouth
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