THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

Evening Star, Issue 3833, 7 June 1875, Page 3

THE DANGERS OF FOOTBALL.

The Rev. 8. G, Rees, rector of Was mg, near Reading, has done well to call attention to the dangers of football, which have been brought home to himself by a distressing calamity. His only child was about to be married to Mr Sydney Branson, whom he describes as “ a young man of the greatest premise, who, being strong and very active, was devoted to athletic sports, especially to football, for which he had an infatuated passion.’’ A lew days ago Mr Branson was playing in a game of football, when be re* ceived kicks, causing severe internal injuries, from which he died. Mr Rees writes “I am sure if the mothers in England could have watched by that dying boy’s side, and there have witnessed the agonising pangs,' the fearful tortures arising from his internal wounds, the straggle of his young, happy, healthy life against the deadly injuries inflicted, and the misery of parting with those now desolate ones to whom he was all in all in life, they would, with one voice, for the sake of their own children, cry aloud against this deadly game. Accidents may happen from every quarter, but this is no better than a prize-fight, and perhaps more dangerous, as prize* fighters do not inflict injuries m vital parts; it is a game essentially brntal, and those who do not play it in a spirited or brutal manner are esteemed of no account. May this awful death, may the cry of anguish from broken hearts, be a warning to mothers, that they forbear te send their sons to those schools where they are compelled by the rules of the school to play. It was at school that Sydney Branson contracted his infatuated passionjfor that game which has destroyed his own happy life, and which bats crushed the heart of a father and his child. If schoolmasters could have witnessed the agonies of that poor boy’s death* bed, they wonld never again encourage this destructive play.” Mr Rees says that the coroner stated that the game, as at present played, is very brutal ; it is certain that serious injuries are often sustained in it, while light injuries are regarded as almost inevitable, and so are thought nothing of.— * Birmingham News.’