The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-01-13

IuS 1uIuI6 VIII llOL De U6Hl6Q
by the more honest of our
present day crop Of sport
scribes, but he was a bum guesssr and
futile reformer as far as the i'm
mediate future of the game was con-
cened.
Despite the structures OF James I,
who refused TO permit the heir ap-
parent to play the game, the sport
grew. 1t was, said the king,
meeter for tanning than making able
the usc-~ thereof" but the masses
tfumbed their noses at the crown
and went merTily at the exercise.
So popular did it become in fact that
every Shrove Tuesday was ain annual
football day in which the townspeople
OF both sexes took part, with great
vigor and little science. The orphan
set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica
which has been adopted by the lea
ture office of the Daily Worker in
forms US that the yearly football
days were such that good men retired
TO their houses behind locked doors
and elderly Spinsters crawled under
four-posterS. g. shutters had to be
put up and houses closed in order to
prevent damage. -"
UNPLEASANT though the news
v may be to some of our non Marx
SITS liberal contemporaries, the history
Of the Development Of football follows
very closely the rise of English cant
taliSm, AS workers were forced into
the huge textile mills of Yorkshire
their fayorite game was modified and
gradually the ulwfitten rules of the
game were codified in proper British
fashion. Towards the middle of the
nineteenth century a division in the
game appeared and what was known
as rugby football and association
(soc2er) football began to take on in
diYidual identities. Today soccer foot
ball (knoWn here as soccer and in
the rest of the world as footbalD is
the national game of the people of
every country with the exception of
the United States and Japan, where
baseball is The Pastime.
Soccer was brought over TO the
United States with the great waves of
immigration from the British Isles.
Scotch, Irish and Welsh workers were
particularly keen on the game and
soccer found strong base among
the workers of English descent in
mining towns, Fall River, PaWtucket
and OF course the large population
eenters like New York and Chicago.
Today it is evidently On the upgrade
in the United States, particularly in
workingclass communities.
What largely accounts for the grow
ing popularity of the game among the
proletarian masses of the United
States-particularly those in basic in
oustry of foreign birth or extraction
is the inexpensiveness of the sport
and its relative freedom from risk.
Playing American football, on the
other hand, is complicated business,
neeessitating grim and joylesS train
ing, costly moleskins, headguards,
shoulder pads and all manner of
equipment. The annual casualty list
and the danger of broken limbs is
also no mean factor in discouraging
football leagues among workers. A
man who must report to work in
rolling mill on Monday is not parti-
culafly keen on going places deter
minedly every Sunday through eleven
huskes equally resolved that he shall
get nowheres and, in fact, that he
shall be smeared behind the line.
This, more than anything else, in
the opinion of your humble cores
pondent, is the reason for the aston
ishing growth Of soccer here and It's