An American at Oxford

by John Corbin

A few days later, in a game against Jesus, the scrums were more evenly matched, and the ball was heeled out oftener. I soon found that my eyes were not sharp enough to follow quick passing; and when, just before half-time, a punt came in my direction, I was horrified to see the ball multiply until it looked like a flock of balloons. As luck had it, I singled out the wrong balloon to catch. Jesus fell on the ball just as it bounced over the goal-line. In the second half the captain put one of the forwards in my place, and put me in the scrum.

The play here was more lively, though scarcely more complex or difficult. Each forward stuck his head beneath the shoulders of the two men in front of him, grasped their waists, and then heaved, until, when the ball popped out of the scrum, the word came to dissolve. There were absolutely no regular positions; the man who was in the front centre of one scrummage might be in the outskirts of the next. On some teams, I found, by inquiry, a definite order is agreed on, but this is regarded as of doubtful advantage.

When the umpire or a half-back tosses the ball into the scrummage, there are, at an ultimate analysis, four things that can happen. First, the two sides may struggle back and forth, carrying the ball on the ground at their feet; this play is called a "pack." Second, the stronger side may cleave the weaker, and run down the field, dribbling the ball yard by yard as they go, until either side picks it up for a run, or else drops on it and cries "down." Third, one side may be able to "screw the scrum," a manœuvre which almost rises to the altitude of a "play." The captain shouts "Right!" or perhaps "Left!" and then his forwards push diagonally, instead of directly, against their opponents. The result is very like what we used to call a revolving wedge, except that, since the ball is carried on the ground, the play eventuates, when successful, in a scattering rush of forwards down the field, dribbling the ball at their feet, just as when the scrum has been cloven. The fourth possibility is that the side that gets the ball amongst its eighteen legs allows it to ooze out behind, or, if its backs are worthy of confidence, purposely heels it out. Thereupon results the play I have already described: one of the half-backs pounces upon it and passes it deftly to the three-quarters, who run with it down the field, if necessary passing it back and forth. In plays which involve passing or dribbling, English teams sometimes reach a very high degree of skill: few sights on the football field are more inspiring than to see a "combination" of players rush in open formation among their opponents, shifting the ball from one to another with such rapidity and accuracy as to elude all attempts to arrest it. As a whole, the game of the forwards is much more fun than that of the backs, though decidedly less attractive in the eyes of the spectators—a consideration of slight importance on an English field!

THROWING IN THE BALL

Just as I began to get warmed to my new work I smashed my nose against the head of a Balliol man who was dodging back into the push. The captain told me that I need not finish the game; but as it is against the English rules to substitute players and we were still far from sure of winning, I kept to my grunting and shoving. At the end of the game the captain very politely gave me the hoof. This was just what I expected and deserved; but I was surprised to find that the fellows had objected to my playing the game through with a bloody nose. They would have preferred not to be bled upon.

This regard for pleasantness and convenience, which to an American is odd enough, is characteristic even of 'varsity football. The slenderness of the preliminary training of a 'varsity fifteen is incredible to any American who has not witnessed it. To sift the candidates there is a freshman match and a senior match, with perhaps one or two "squashes"—that is to say, informal games—besides. And even these tests are largely a matter of form. Men are selected chiefly on their public school reputations or in consequence of good work on a college fifteen. The process of developing players, so familiar to us, is unknown. There is no coaching of any kind, as we understand the word. When a man has learned the game at his public school or in his college, he has learned it for all time, though he will, of course, improve by playing for the university. The need of concentrated practice is greatly lessened by the fact that the soft English winter allows as long a season of play as is desired. The team plays a game or two a week against the great club teams of England—Blackheath, Richmond, London Scottish, Cardiff, Newport, and Huddersfield—with perhaps a bit of informal kicking and punting between times. When the weather is too bad, it lays off entirely.

All this does not conduce to the strenuousness of spirit Americans throw into their sports. In an inter-varsity match I saw the Oxford team which was fifty per cent. better allow itself to be shoved all over the field: it kept the game a tie only by the rarest good fortune. It transpired later that the gayeties of Brighton, whither the team had gone to put the finishing touches on its training, had been too much for it. In an American university such laxity would be thought the lowest depth of unmanliness, but I could not see that any one at Oxford really resented it; at most it was a subject for mild sarcasm. You can't expect a team to be in the push everywhere!

This lack of thorough preparation is even more characteristic of the international teams—England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—that yearly play for the championship of Great Britain. They are chosen from the most brilliant players in the leading clubs, and local jealousy makes the task of choosing most delicate. The temptation is to take a man or two impartially from each of the great fifteens. As the international teams take little or no practice as a whole, the tendency in the great games is to neglect the finer arts of dribbling and passing in combination—the arts for which each player was severally chosen—and revert to the primitive grunting and shoving. In the great games, accordingly, the team which is man for man inferior as regards the fine points may prevail by sheer strength, so that the result is liable to be most unsatisfactory. Some years ago, owing to local jealousy, the Welsh international had to be chosen mainly from a single club—with the result that it won the championship; and in 1901 the canny Scotch team won by intentionally selecting its members, in spite of local jealousy, on the score of their familiarity with one another's play.