"Gentlemen, in fact, who loved and enjoyed sport for its own sake, and for that part of it, ladies too, had voted betting 'low and unmanly,' and even degrading, and as Parliament had been repeatedly petitioned on the subject, a bill was almost unanimously passed in the dying year of the nineteenth century abolishing betting.
"The Loyal Irish Party (late Home Rulers), and the Rado-Toro Democratic Party (led by Lord Randy Chapel-Mountain), whose hair was beginning to get silvery-grey, and his long moustache to match, did not even oppose the bill, and it passed. Never did a legislative enactment work such improvement among the masses as this bill. It completely banished all needy souls and black-legs from the arena of honest sport, and left the field to those who came out of an afternoon and evening to enjoy themselves in an honest way.
"The coarse language, too, of which our forefathers justly complained twenty years ago, had almost disappeared, whether through the effects of the School Board, I would not like to say, but one could now take sweetheart or wife to enjoy themselves, provided always, of course, the weather was at all suitable.
"As for professional football players, no such thing had been heard of for years. They certainly died hard, but eventually no club would have anything to do with them.
"'What is that?' 'Oh, it's the bell to begin.'
"Well, the game did begin in earnest, immediately after a fair lady had thrown out the leather ball from the Grand Stand at the right-hand side of the field. There was no tossing for choice of ends, for a new rule had been just added to the revised code enacting in a most chivalrous way that strangers or visitors be allowed to select the side of the ground they preferred to play on for the first half-hour—for you must know, my readers, the term now allowed for the game was one hour, and that when the ball was kicked into touch, there was no throwing back into play with the hands, but it was kicked from the touch-line straight out before play was again resumed.
"For some time the forwards kept the leather close to themselves, and the Yankees on the left wing, by a fine piece of manœuvring, were successful in getting it away, amid tremendous cheering. Chandler, who was one of the fastest sprinters in the world, and had beaten the record in San Francisco in the fall of last year, got through his men in brilliant form, and came down on the goalkeeper like 'winkum.' Just as he was poising himself, however, for a final shot, M'Neil deliberately crossed the field from the opposite side, and after dodging about the young American, rushed in and took the leather away, and keeping it between his feet for a couple of seconds, kicked it clear of the Scotch goal. A good deal of heading afterwards occurred near the home goal—the ball getting close on the lines several times, and even passing them. Many considered before the game began that the Americans would never have a 'look in' at all, and great was their dismay when they actually beheld their champions hotly pressed on their own ground, and look like losing the day. With a brilliant charge the Yankee forwards crowded round the Scotch sticks like a hive of bees on a June morning, and a straight shot from the foot of D. Steel, who rushed in from his place at half-back, caused the ball to glide past the Scotch goalkeeper like a rocket.
"This was the signal for tremendous excitement. Crowds of partisans and friends who had come over with the strangers, and many enthusiastic lovers of the game and fair play, raised a loud cheer, again and again renewed, at this piece of grand play on the part of the Yankees. The intensely interested Scotchmen, however, while they certainly admired the pluck and fine play of the visitors, and cheered in a mild kind of a way, even though an enemy wrung it from them, kept very quiet, and not a few white faces might have been seen about the wire fence which kept spectators and players apart on Bruce Park on that memorable day. They, however, kept their own counsel, and quaintly said to the Yankees who chaffed them on the point, that howling was a very good thing in a way, but it should not be indulged in till people were out of the wood.
"The teams then faced each other in midfield, and the ball had no sooner left the Scotch captain's foot than it was taken away, and dribbled down the centre by Bryan, Whitehouse, and Lawrence, and when half-time was called the latter was just finishing a good shy, which sent the ball over the bar. According to the new rules a quarter of an hour was allowed as an interval, and during that time speculation ran high as to what was destined to be the final issue.
"To indulge for a moment at the idea of the Americans beating the Scotch on their own ground in the great International was a sore point for the bulk of the spectators with Scotch faces, but they said very little. They had a secret hope that their champions would eventually pull off the game, even though they had a goal to make up, and only half-an-hour to do it. They had, it was remembered with pride and satisfaction, pulled through many a doubtful match before, and Scotchmen, it was well known, were not easily beaten.