This week’s choice is “A Friendly Game of Football” by the Australian writer Edward ‘Ted’ Dyson and I have chosen it to mark the birthday of a friend’s son who is a sportsman, a footballer and referee. I hope he’s never had to ‘umpire’ a match like this one.

You could hardly wish to come across a fairer-minded chap
For a friendly game of football than that umpire at The Gap.
Edward ‘Ted’ Dyson (1865—1931)

Poem 200. A Friendly Game of Football

We were challenged by The Dingoes — they're the pride of Squatter's Gap—
To a friendly game of football on the flat by Devil's Trap.
And we went along on horses, sworn to triumph in the game,
For the honour of Gyp's Diggings, and the glory of the same.

And we took the challenge with us. It was beautiful to see,
With its lovely curly letters, at its pretty filigree.
It was very gently worded, and it made us all feel good,
For it breathed the sweetest sentiments of peace and brotherhood.

We had Chang, and Trucker Hogan, and the man who licked The Plug,
Also Heggarty, and Hoolahan, and Peter Scott, the pug;
And we wore our knuckle-dusters, and we took a keg on tap
To our friendly game of football with The Dingoes at The Gap.

All the fellows came to meet us, and we spoke like brothers dear.
They'd a tip-dray full of tucker, and a waggon load of beer,
And some lint done up in bundles; so we reckoned there'd be fun
Ere our friendly game of football with the Dingo Club was done.

Their umpire was a homely man, a stranger to the push,
With a sweet, deceitful calmness, and a flavour of the bush.
He declared he didn't know the game, but promised on his oath
To see fair and square between the teams, or paralyse them both.

Then we bounced the ball and started, and for twenty minutes quite
We observed a proper courtesy and a heavenly sense of right,
But Fitzpatrick tipped McDougal in a handy patch of mud,
And the hero rose up, chewing dirt, and famishing for blood.

Simple Simonsen, the umpire, sorted out the happy pair,
And he found a pitch to suit them, and we left them fighting there;
But The Conqueror and Cop-Out met with cries of rage and pain,
And wild horses couldn't part those ancient enemies again.

So the umpire dragged them from the ruck, and pegged them off a patch,
And then gave his best attention to the slugging and the match.
You could hardly wish to come across a fairer-minded chap
For a friendly game of football than that umpire at The Gap.

In a while young Smith, and Henty, and Blue Ben, and Dick, and Blake,
Chose their partners from The Dingoes, and went pounding for the cake.
Timmy Hogan hit the umpire, and was promptly put to bed
'Neath the ammunition waggon, with a bolus on his head.

Feeling lonely-like, Magee took on a local star named Bent,
And four others started fighting to avoid an argument:
So Simonsen postponed the game, for fear some slight mishap
Might disturb the pleasant feeling then prevailing at The Gap.

Sixty seconds later twenty lively couples held the floor,
And the air was full of whiskers, and the grass was tinged with gore,
And the umpire kept good order in the interests of peace,
Whilst the people, to oblige him, sat severely on the p'lice.

Well, we fought the friendly game out, but I couldn't say who won;
We were all stretched out on shutters when the glorious day was done;
Both the constables had vanished; one was carried off to bunk,
And the umpire was exhausted, and the populace was drunk.

But we've written out a paper, with good Father Feeley's aid,
Breathing brotherly affection; and the challenge is conveyed
To the Dingo Club at Squatter's, and another friendly game
Will eventuate at this end, on the flat below the claim.

We have pressed The Gap to bring their central umpire if they can—
Here we honestly admire him as a fair and decent man—
And we're building on a pleasant time beside the Phoenix slums,
For The Giant feels he's got a call to plug him if he comes.

This poem tells us the rather entertaining tale of two Australian football teams, The Dingoes and Gyp’s Diggings, who respond to a challenge issued by The Dingoes by visiting them for “a friendly game of football”. The rules for this encounter aren’t entirely clear initially, but we soon learn that the encounter is unlikely to follow the Laws of the Game, or even the Queensberry Rules.

The irony implicit in this description quickly becomes clear, reinforced by the description of the challenge itself:

It was very gently worded, and it made us all feel good,
For it breathed the sweetest sentiments of peace and brotherhood.

One can’t help feeling that the language used in this invitation was much less polite than described since the next stanza lists the members of the Gyp’s Diggings team and their equipment for the friendly game: knuckle-dusters and a keg of beer.

In the next stanza, the two teams meet and “spoke like brothers dear”—again, one suspects this line of euphemism since there is also “lint done up in bundles”, presumably for first aid.

We then get our first view of the referee or umpire, who appears to be new to the game of football, though no stranger to the actual business on hand:

He declared he didn’t know the game, but promised on his oath
To see fair and square between the teams, or paralyse them both.

The game begins and is conducted in a relatively orderly manner until the trouble begins twenty minutes in when two of the opposing team members square off after one is tripped into a muddy patch by the other:

And the hero rose up, chewing dirt, and famishing for blood.

The umpire, who we find is named Simonsen, finds them a convenient place to settle their differences and leaves them to it, by which time, another fight has begun between The Conqueror and Cop-Out, who apparently have a long history of contention. Simonsen drags them from the melée too and returns to the main event.

As the poem progresses, more and more team members find opponents to fight and Hogan takes on the umpire and apparently loses, being “promptly put to bed”; eventually everyone is fighting and in a masterpiece of understatement, Dyson describes the umpire postponing the game:

…for fear some slight mishap
Might disturb the pleasant feeling then prevailing at The Gap.

By this time, the umpire has become more of a boxing referee, as forty men go at each other hell for leather, and “the people, to oblige him, sat severely on the p’lice.”—in other words, the crowd stop the local police from interfering.

In the end, every member of the teams is unconscious, the policemen have made themselves scarce and the crowd is completely paralytic. One can imagine the umpire heaving a sigh, pouring himself a cold one from the keg and sitting down to survey the devastation around him.

However, there is evidently unfinished business to transact, as the miners of Gyp’s Diggings have prevailed on their local priest, Father Feeley, to write out a similar missive of invitation to The Dingoes to play a return match “on the flat below the claim” and inviting the others to bring their umpire, for whom it seems trouble may be on the horizon, “For the Giant feels he’s got a call to plug him when he comes”.

I like this poem because it is cheerful and funny and suggests a situation that gets more and more out of hand until at the end there is total mayhem and the referee is the last man standing.

A Fairer-Minded Chap

Poem 200. A Friendly Game of Football

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