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Early Wellington

Football Match

Football Match.

“The game of football seems likely,” says the “Independent” newspaper of the 23rd August, 1870, “to become as popular here as a winter sport, as cricket is gaining favour as a summer one, for notwithstanding the woeful state of the ground, some enthusiasts have met several times lately to enjoy this old English pastime. And on Saturday, seldom have we seen a game played with more spirit and pluck on both sides, and so long as the ball had to be kicked along the new made artificial ground it was well enough, but once off that part, all sorts of bogs and quagmires were encountered, and how the players kept on their legs is astonishing, though, of course, almost everybody had at least one tumble, a casualty that did not improve the toilet.

“The teams were the Wellington, and some men-o'-wars-men. The latter were ultimately victorious by obtaining a goal.

This game, always a rough one, becomes more so on bad ground, but nothing occurred to disturb good temper, even for an instant.

The following is a list of the players:—H.M.S. “Rosario”: Moore, Gorden, Adair, Carlyon, Rudland, Mead, Roberts, Head, Wise, Urwin, Currie, Vaughan, Simpson, Warner, Winter, and Murphy. Wellington: Manning, Harrison, Munro, Maclean*, Parkes, Williamson, Isherwood, Otterson, Crampton, Macdonald, Case, Beale, Goring, Baker, and another whose name we have been unable to obtain.”

“The play in the football match on the Basin Reserve on Saturday, the 22nd July, 1876,” states the “Evening Post,” “was tolerably good, but neither side could succeed in kicking a goal. The multitude of black and yellow striped legs (the new uniform), had an exceedingly comical effect, looking like so many magnified wasp bodies.

“At a meeting of the Committee of the Football Club, a letter was read from the Secretary of the Nelson Club, stating that a Nelson team of fifteen would leave about the 10th August, and suggested that the game should be decided by points. A goal to count six, touch down two, and a force down half a point, and also that it be considered lawful to pick up the ball only when on the bound and not when it is either dead or rolling along the ground. The team selected to play against Nelson were: Campbell (2), Werry, Bishop (2), Webby, Irvine, Niven, Thompson, Fitzgerald, Sheppard, Black, James, Lynch and Boscowan.”

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Fig. 57A.—Reading from left to right: Edward Wakefield (M.P.), R. D. D. Maclean (Sir Douglas), and Oliver Wakefield.

Fig. 57A.—Reading from left to right: Edward Wakefield (M.P.), R. D. D. Maclean (Sir Douglas), and Oliver Wakefield.

Fig. 57b.—Footballers of the Seventies. Some of the members of the Wellington Football Team who played at Nelson, in the second match. Wellington v. Nelson, 1870. The names, as submitted from memory by the late Sir Douglas Maclean (one of the players) are:—Standing: Maclean, Gore, Kemp, ——, R. W. Kane (extreme right). Those sitting are: H. Lyon, McIntosh or Park, Hudson Williamson or Bishop. Other players at the time were: Cockburn-Hood, Monro, James, Riddiford, Arthur and Isherwood.

Fig. 57b.—Footballers of the Seventies. Some of the members of the Wellington Football Team who played at Nelson, in the second match. Wellington v. Nelson, 1870. The names, as submitted from memory by the late Sir Douglas Maclean (one of the players) are:—Standing: Maclean, Gore, Kemp, ——, R. W. Kane (extreme right). Those sitting are: H. Lyon, McIntosh or Park, Hudson Williamson or Bishop. Other players at the time were: Cockburn-Hood, Monro, James, Riddiford, Arthur and Isherwood.

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