Mr FN Charrington, the East End temperance worker who is conducting a crusade against the playing of football during the war, sent a telegram to the King last week in the following terms: “May it please your Majesty to remember that Lord Roberts recently said it would be disgraceful if football was continued during the war. The Football Association have now decided to continue their matches despite all protests. Your Majesty has set an example to the nation in sending your two noble sons to the front. Millions of your Majesty’s loyal subjects will be anxious to know if your Majesty’s name will still be used as patron of the Football Association.”
Mr Charrington at the same time telegraphed to Lord Kinnaird asking whether he intended to remain president of the Football Association in view of that body’s “unpatriotic decision” to continue football. Lord Kinnaird, in his reply, said he had not yet had details of the action of the Football Association Council, but he hardly expected they would do anything unpatriotic. The notices he had seen in the papers rather indicated that they wanted to encourage recruiting for the Army and to help in many ways. “Giving up football entirely is not so simple as you think. Contracts have been made which can be enforced in a Court of Law, and you could not advocate the breaking of contracts.” In a postscript Lord Kinnaird adds: “The reasons for continuing some football are too long for a letter.”
INCIDENT AT A FULHAM MATCH
At the West London Police Court yesterday application was made on behalf of Mr Charrington for summonses against two officials of the Fulham Football Club for assault. It was stated that the officials of the Football Association had promised him facilities for attending at football matches and recruiting. On Saturday he went to the Fulham Football Ground, where about 12,000 persons, most of them young men, were watching a match. At half-time Mr Charrington rose, and was proceeding to make some remarks when he was seized by the two men who, without making any request to him to leave, dragged him roughly along the gangway, and nearly threw him down the steps. The summonses were granted.