ANNE SHARPLEY
THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1957. ⠀
The most baffling 135 minutes
of my life.
Pago
Whats Best in Kowloon?
Princess Garden
proudly presents
A MOST BRILLIANT ENTERTAINER OF ONE THOUSAND FACES
BILLY BANKS
with famed planist
NICK DEMUTH
IN AN EVENING OF SONGS & LAUCHTER
66XXTH AT'S American football?" I asked
"WH
In a pre-Royal Tour panic when it was announced that the Queen was going to see a match during her trip to North America.
It couldn't be the same as those glum but splendid wet Saturday afternoons I used to spend watching Third Division North,
Vague Impressions of young
וור
I WATCH THE BULLETS MAKE ‘HISTORY' AT HAYES
They wear spectacular striped They have another which shirts and white breeches, out different for дипу matches, of the rear pocket of which Some of the players have their spills a big red banky. They helmets glided, which is exotic, are always throwing this red but a bli upsetting as they look honky about, and when it hits so like brass bed-knobs. the ground the playing slops.
||||
They have lots of umpiring white helmets, red trousers and The Burtonwood Bullets have devices like whistles us well. But best of all is a contraption shirt and 30 pounds weight of which looks like two enormous padding which gives them the appearance of rather strange
ten yards
men with shoulders like humbug lollipops, held together Cadillacs and enormous helmele by a chain exnelly were not going to help much | lỏng. towards an authoritative write- up when the Queen, 50,000 Americans and I sat down to watch Maryland and North Carolina Universities play each other on October 19,
"Ring up one of the American basea and see if they have a gomo
on,' going
auggested.
They had.
someone
The Greatest
crustacea.
There are 60 players on the held but only 22 play the rest
This device is always being rushed on to the field because are reserves. the distance of 10 yards is terribly important and nobody seems able to pace it out or distance without Judge the measuring it exactly,
London itiek of with a ball the size that any nember of the two teams could swallow.
keep getting into clusters and a rather puzzling feature of the bending down, staring at the game became clear to me. gross with the absorption of a
American football group studying a rare botanical specimen.
"They're planning what to do next." I am told.
Somebody in One
of the clusters has had an idea. A boy Burtonwood decides to from give up this flinging on a pile and do some running. He runs 20 yards and it is, it scents, a | touch-down.
Most Unusual
"That's most
unusual," saya everyone. And it is. It didn't happen again for ages. They just kept flinging themselves into piles with the fervour of Hindu widows committing
Everyone on the eld flings himself on to a plie-the same The umpires go berserk. Penally?" I ask. "Nope. It's asuttee Instead.
onc.
first down."
Kick off again. Everyone throws himself on to a plle again. "Penalty?" I ask, "Nope. Second down
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
grandstand is a band In the which, when the ball is ticked, gives a drum-roll ending In à drum-crash when the ball lands. This is because the ball so seldom moves at all that the It turned
to be the event is worth nothing. oul biggest, the greatest beznz of a
The London Mockets are football game that Amerles-in-
their home-playing "Why do they keep huddling Europe can provide.
And I'm wearing
uniform, which is blue and gold. together?" I ask. The teams still trying to understand why.
Sickeningly aware of how difcull It is to measure up to a great moment if you don't know what I's all about, I was informed after the most puzzled two hours and a quarter of my
"You have just witnessed Euro-American football history."
1 hed seen the London Rockets detented by the Burtonwood Bullets 13-1 al the Sports Stadium in Hayes.
So here, for a small, privately circulated history book is what I think happened.
First thing you need for American football is a supply of hot dogs. These should ffont non-stop over and between the heads of the crowd of the rate of two hol-dogs to one head- always mysteriously passing backwards and forwards along the rows.
with
. You need lots of while ines all ever the field and lots of littic
white notices, numbers on them, to dot about, Then you need players. About enough for four English soccer matches will do if you throw in all the umpires and attendants,
Dress them in flunkey's breeches, gorilla's shoulders and
Martian helmois,
Packed Buses
The teams arrive, shouting and chanting, in very packed buses, and run out on to the field with a high-stepping gait to do exercises. These exercises are the most tiring part of the Fame.
What are the Quallications for an American football player. "Big and stoopid." said the man on my left. "Fast and intel- ligent said the man
on my right.
You need no less than reven referees and referee-types. They form a sort of third "team-the one that actually always wins.
A DAY OF
GOOD WESTERN ACTION
SHOTS-
FERDINAND
NANCY
NANCY STOP SHOOTING THESE RUBBER ARROWS IN THE HOUSE
PROMISE YOU WON'T DO IT
AGAIN
"It's a very artificial game," sold the man on my left, "You couldn't pay me to see it," he added, watching I just the same.
"Why do they kick the ball to the opposing team?" I caked, as
THAT'S FINE, DEVELOP THOSE FILMS, AND WE'LL HAVE A LOOK AT THEM,
TONIGHT.
"In
you
JAX
"They haven't been beaten #inco 1062." "This is history, The Rockets just can't be beaten."
Teenagers in Tyrolean hats, earrings, ears and Chunksly socks were going off like steam whistles,
Suburban Lawn
Colta."
The ambulance had the big-
At least three-quarters of the gest success of the first half, A
injured and to field had not been so much as player was cheers of "Being out the meat-stepped on it had all gone on wagon," the ambulance roared in an round the track.
"But after the interval the erowd, hot-dog maddened, began to scream for more than two teams just taking headers into treaps.
"Let's Go Rockets. Rockets. GÓ, GO, GO.”
Go,
A swaying line of teenage maidens, in swingy sitirts with white
trilles underneath, cheer-led us in shrill unison with "Lean to the Left. Lean to the Right, Stand Up. Sit Down FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.”
orca the size
of A
suburban lawn.
In a tight, jubilant pack Burionwood ran off the feld, coach carried on their their shoulders-the winners.
The
with London Rockets, dramatic dejections, trailed from the game the losers. Declama- tion and woe broke out in the grandstand. "I gotta get drunk tonight," said a pretty young tragedy.
"Like' an an allen religion," said a snooty European volce.
woman
In tones of
Greek
It all seemed far, far away' from the Third Division North But on
wet glum but splendid
Someone started a light in the back of the grandstand. that was not what the cheer-Saturday afternoons... leaders meant, presumably.
By Lee Falk ́and Phil Davis
LATER
I'M SORRY, MR, BANKS BUT THESE FILMS ARB ALL RUINED! THEY'VG SEEN EXPOSED TO LIGHTT
FILM LABENC
London Express Service),
(There's More than Magic in
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Sports Diary
TODAY
Meeting, HICPA Council Meeting at Sporta Hund, 340 pr.
Soccer.
Hut Divisions; "C16 V BAF) (CAD))) Army v Koron Wah (B8)" both matchse at 029, pin.
Ma Kasoryo Dividenz Bouth), China. V
CAACR; KMB :v Sing
(Mary) "bolli matobos, at 5:30 pm.
Interpart, Gof
at Faning
TAO
"“with. Singapore
Ladies' Bliver and Bronze Divi- sions, Fantina:
TOMORROW
Sacost 128 Divizion: 1:5. Chiņa v CAA (G Hina Kaka v Bằng Tha (2. B2) 1915 mmchen start at 4:10. ping
Division), Ritches,
Posion. (Navy) #81730:23",
Infernort: - Combined): [BorvIDGE" Biožupure at raming,
JOHNNY HAZARD
SLOW DOWN,
GENE? WHAT'S
THAT AHEADT
LOOKS LIKE JOINEDHE'S | ́BOGGED DOWN IN THIS --- HOKKAIDO MUD!
By Frank Hobbins
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