It is a large place standing in the four cross roads where electric trams stopped—a definite centre of the town. The landlord is the secretary of a most prosperous local cricket club, he is intimately concerned with the local football—Association—and is a prominent swimmer.
At all times of the year the district is intensely interested in sport, and the hotel is a headquarters of it. The walls of bars and smoking-rooms are covered with photographs of this or that local team, the whole talk is redolent of sport—and your Northerner or Midlander is generally the keenest sportsman of all.
It was quite obvious that this hotel was extremely and noticeably prosperous, everything proclaimed it. I was introduced by the landlord, a thoroughly good fellow, to various local football players and swimmers. The talk of the smoke-room was entirely occupied with sport, there was a real knowledge of, and love for games. One heard shrewd and penetrating criticism, one saw fine healthy-looking men who were certainly no mere machines for the decomposing of their lunch and dinner! In fact, the evening was thoroughly congenial.
Next morning after breakfast, I smoked my pipe in the bar parlour. At one side of the place was a counter which formed a barrier between it and the ordinary tap-room. Three young and powerful men came in—it was about 9.30 in the morning. They asked the barmaid for a drink I had never heard of—“three warm sodas, please.” The girl opened three bottles of soda, poured some hot water into each glass and gave it to the customers.
When they had gone, I asked her what was the meaning of this.
“Oh,” she said, “there was a football supper last night These lads were all drunk. They often come for a warm soda in the morning, it sobers them.”
The remark was a prelude to some interesting information. The girl was a native of the North. She had been in the bars of several Lancashire public-houses; what she told me was simply a dreary record of personal experience. In effect, it was this: After a big football match the hotels were always crowded, packed so closely that it was difficult for a late-comer to enter. On such occasions the staff of pot-boys and men to keep order was recruited from the stables. Drunkenness, distinct drunkenness, was very common. The members of the two teams were often the core of a welter of riot. The players themselves were treated by their admirers until they frequently became intoxicated. Quarrels and rows of all sorts were of almost momentary occurrence. “I hate all big sporting days,” she said. “You’ve no idea what we girls have to put up with. They all seem to go mad. But there, the takings are enormous so I suppose sport’s good for trade!”
I tell this little story not because I was unaware of the facts before, but because a “picture” is always valuable in making a point, and because a coincidence has provided me with this picture at the moment when I am writing on this subject.
Every one knows the state of things in this regard thoroughly well. It isn’t sporadic—it’s systematic. And day by day in many districts, you may witness the paradox of a man who is above his fellows in the fine cultivation and training of his body, using his gifts in the finest way—and drugging himself with poison directly afterwards. And not only does the athlete himself do this, but his influence has a far-reaching effect upon others. The hero corrupts inumerable valets, and what should be an uplifting thing for the spectators, becomes, in the nick of time and in the punctual place, an opportunity for unbridled indulgence.
Nearly every footballer knows that what I say is true, and still the thing grows. It is not too much to say that, at the moment, drink stands before the progress of popular sport like an armed assassin in a narrow path. I shall give other instances in a moment, but at this point it is proper to explain that one is no fanatic. Sport calls aloud for temperance to-day, but sport is not concerned with teetotalism. Every active sportsman must cultivate each sense to its highest power, that is a condition of success in sport. But there is a sixth sense, not sufficiently recognized by writers attacking an evil no less than by sportsmen who concur in it.