EDMUND. I'm still puzzled. Is football a business then?
AUSTIN. Of course. That's the worst of burying yourself in London. You never know anything. Football clubs to-day are limited companies.
EDMUND. I fancy I had heard that.
AUSTIN. Well, broadly speaking, and not so broadly either, I am the limited company that runs Blackton Rovers. You never cared for sport. I was always keen. In the old amateur days, I played for Blackton while you went country walks and studied law. Football's always meant a lot to me. It means life or death to-day.
EDMUND. That's a strong way of talking about a game, Austin.
AUSTIN. Life or death, Edmund. Blackton's been my passion. It's not a town that's full of rich men, and the others buttoned up their pockets. Employers of labour too, who know as well as I do that football is an antidote to strikes, besides keeping the men in better condition by giving them somewhere to go instead of pubs. I've poured money out like water, but the spring's run dry and other Clubs are richer. They can buy better players. They bought them from me.
EDMUND. Have the men no choice?
AUSTIN. Up to a point. But footballers aren't sentimentalists and rats desert a sinking ship. The one man who stuck to me was Metherell. He's a Blackton lad, and he liked to play for his native town. To-day, he's gone. I made him go for the money I needed. The Club's been losing matches. We were knocked out of the Cup Tie in the first round. Lose to-day and Blackton Rovers go down to the second division. My Club in the second division!
EDMUND. Does that matter so much—apart from sentimental reasons?
AUSTIN. It matters this much. That there'll never be another dividend. The gate money for the second division game's no use to me.