We went on the Grand Stand, which was packed with men whose eyes were
fixed, with an unconscious but intense effort, on a common object. Among
the men were a few women in furs and wraps, equally absorbed. Nobody
took any notice of us as we insinuated our way up a rickety flight of
wooden stairs, but when by misadventure we grazed a human being the
elbow of that being shoved itself automatically and fiercely outwards,
to repel. I had an impression of hats, caps, and woolly overcoats
stretched in long parallel lines, and of grimy raw planks everywhere
presenting possibly dangerous splinters, save where use had worn them
into smooth shininess. Then gradually I became aware of the vast field,
which was more brown than green. Around the field was a wide border of
infinitesimal hats and pale faces, rising in tiers, and beyond this
border fences, hoardings, chimneys, furnaces, gasometers,
telegraph-poles, houses, and dead trees. And here and there, perched in
strange perilous places, even high up towards the sombre sky, were more
human beings clinging. On the field itself, at one end of it, were a
scattered handful of doll-like figures, motionless; some had white
bodies, others red; and three were in black; all were so small and so
far off that they seemed to be mere unimportant casual incidents in
whatever recondite affair it was that was proceeding. Then a whistle
shrieked, and all these figures began simultaneously to move, and then
I saw a ball in the air. An obscure, uneasy murmuring rose from the
immense multitude like an invisible but audible vapour. The next instant
the vapour had condensed into a sudden shout. Now I saw the ball rolling
solitary in the middle of the field, and a single red doll racing
towards it; at one end was a confused group of red and white, and at the
other two white dolls, rather lonely in the expanse. The single red doll
overtook the ball and scudded along with it at his twinkling toes. A
great voice behind me bellowed with an incredible volume of sound:
"Now, Jos!"
And another voice, further away, bellowed:
"Now, Jos!"
And still more distantly the grim warning shot forth from the crowd:
"Now, Jos! Now, Jos!"
The nearer of the white dolls, as the red one approached, sprang
forward. I could see a leg. And the ball was flying back in a
magnificent curve into the skies; it passed out of my sight, and then I
heard a bump on the slates of the roof of the grand stand, and it fell
among the crowd in the stand-enclosure. But almost before the flight of
the ball had commenced, a terrific roar of relief had rolled formidably
round the field, and out of that roar, like rockets out of thick smoke,
burst acutely ecstatic cries of adoration:
"Bravo, Jos!"
"Good old Jos!"
The leg had evidently been Jos's leg. The nearer of these two white
dolls must be Jos, darling of fifteen thousand frenzied people.
Stirling punched a neighbour in the side to attract his attention.
"What's the score?" he demanded of the neighbour, who scowled and then
grinned.
"Two--one--agen uz!" The other growled.
"It'll take our b----s all their time to draw. They're playing a man
short."
"Accident?"
"No! Referee ordered him off for rough play."
Several spectators began to explain, passionately, furiously, that the
referee's action was utterly bereft of common sense and justice; and I
gathered that a less gentlemanly crowd would undoubtedly have lynched
the referee. The explanations died down, and everybody except me resumed
his fierce watch on the field.
I was recalled from the exercise of a vague curiosity upon the set,
anxious faces around me by a crashing, whooping cheer which in volume
and sincerity of joy surpassed all noises in my experience. This massive
cheer reverberated round the field like the echoes of a battleship's
broadside in a fiord. But it was human, and therefore more terrible than
guns. I instinctively thought: "If such are the symptoms of pleasure,
what must be the symptoms of pain or disappointment?" Simultaneously
with the expulsion of the unique noise the expression of the faces
changed. Eyes sparkled; teeth became prominent in enormous, uncontrolled
smiles. Ferocious satisfaction had to find vent in ferocious gestures,
wreaked either upon dead wood or upon the living tissues of
fellow-creatures. The gentle, mannerly sound of hand-clapping was a kind
of light froth on the surface of the billowy sea of heartfelt applause.
The host of the fifteen thousand might have just had their lives saved,
or their children snatched from destruction and their wives from
dishonour; they might have been preserved from bankruptcy, starvation,
prison, torture; they might have been rewarding with their impassioned
worship a band of national heroes. But it was not so. All that had
happened was that the ball had rolled into the net of the Manchester
Rovers' goal. Knype had drawn level. The reputation of the Five Towns
before the jury of expert opinion that could distinguish between
first-class football and second-class was maintained intact. I could
hear specialists around me proving that though Knype had yet five League
matches to play, its situation was safe. They pointed excitedly to a
huge hoarding at one end of the ground on which appeared names of other
clubs with changing figures. These clubs included the clubs which Knype
would have to meet before the end of the season, and the figures
indicated their fortunes on various grounds similar to this ground all
over the country. If a goal was scored in Newcastle, or in Southampton,
the very Peru of first-class football, it was registered on that board
and its possible effect on the destinies of Knype was instantly
assessed. The calculations made were dizzying.
Then a little flock of pigeons flew up and separated, under the illusion
that they were free agents and masters of the air, but really wafted
away to fixed destinations on the stupendous atmospheric waves of
still-continued cheering.
After a minute or two the ball was restarted, and the greater noise had
diminished to the sensitive uneasy murmur which responded like a
delicate instrument to the fluctuations of the game. Each feat and
manoeuvre of Knype drew generous applause in proportion to its intention
or its success, and each sleight of the Manchester Rovers, successful or
not, provoked a holy disgust. The attitude of the host had passed beyond
morality into religion.
Then, again, while my attention had lapsed from the field, a devilish, a
barbaric, and a deafening yell broke from those fifteen thousand
passionate hearts. It thrilled me; it genuinely frightened me. I
involuntarily made the motion of swallowing. After the thunderous crash
of anger from the host came the thin sound of a whistle. The game
stopped. I heard the same word repeated again and again, in divers
tones of exasperated fury:
"Foul!"
I felt that I was hemmed in by potential homicides, whose arms were
lifted in the desire of murder and whose features were changed from the
likeness of man into the corporeal form of some pure and terrible
instinct.
And I saw a long doll rise from the ground and approach a lesser doll
with threatening hands.
"Foul! Foul!"
"Go it, Jos! Knock his neck out! Jos! He tripped thee up!"
There was a prolonged gesticulatory altercation between the three black
dolls in leather leggings and several of the white and the red dolls. At
last one of the mannikins in leggings shrugged his shoulders, made a
definite gesture to the other two, and walked away towards the edge of
the field nearest the stand. It was the unprincipled referee; he had
disallowed the foul. In the protracted duel between the offending
Manchester forward and the great, honest Jos Myatt he had given another
point to the enemy. As soon as the host realized the infamy it yelled
once more in heightened fury. It seemed to surge in masses against the
thick iron railings that alone stood between the referee and death. The
discreet referee was approaching the grand stand as the least unsafe
place. In a second a handful of executioners had somehow got on to the
grass. And in the next second several policemen were in front of them,
not striking nor striving to intimidate, but heavily pushing them into
bounds.
"Get back there!" cried a few abrupt, commanding voices from the stand.
The referee stood with his hands in his pockets and his whistle in his
mouth. I think that in that moment of acutest suspense the whole of his
earthly career must have flashed before him in a phantasmagoria. And
then the crisis was past. The inherent gentlemanliness of the outraged
host had triumphed and the referee was spared.
"Served him right if they'd man-handled him!" said a spectator.
"Ay!" said another, gloomily, "ay! And th' Football Association 'ud ha'
fined us maybe a hundred quid and disqualified th' ground for the rest
o' th' season!"
"D----n th' Football Association!"
"Ay! But you canna'!"
"Now, lads! Play up, Knype! Now, lads! Give 'em hot hell!" Different
voices heartily encouraged the home team as the ball was thrown into
play.
The fouling Manchester forward immediately resumed possession of the
ball. Experience could not teach him. He parted with the ball and got it
again, twice. The devil was in him and in the ball. The devil was
driving him towards Myatt. They met. And then came a sound quite new: a
cracking sound, somewhat like the snapping of a bough, but sharper, more
decisive.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Stirling. "That's his bone!"
And instantly he was off down the staircase and I after him. But he was
not the first doctor on the field. Nothing had been unforeseen in the
wonderful organization of this enterprise. A pigeon sped away and an
official doctor and an official stretcher appeared, miraculously,
simultaneously. It was tremendous. It inspired awe in me.
"He asked for it!" I heard a man say as I hesitated on the shore of the
ocean of mud.
Then I knew that it was Manchester and not Knype that had suffered. The
confusion and hubbub were in a high degree disturbing and puzzling. But
one emotion emerged clear: pleasure. I felt it myself. I was aware of
joy in that the two sides were now levelled to ten men apiece. I was
mystically identified with the Five Towns, absorbed into their life. I
could discern on every face the conviction that a divine providence was
in this affair, that God could not be mocked. I too had this conviction.
I could discern also on every face the fear lest the referee might give
a foul against the hero Myatt, or even order him off the field, though
of course the fracture was a simple accident. I too had this fear. It
was soon dispelled by the news which swept across the entire enclosure
like a sweet smell, that the referee had adopted the theory of a simple
accident. I saw vaguely policemen, a stretcher, streaming crowds, and my
ears heard a monstrous universal babbling. And then the figure of
Stirling detached itself from the moving disorder and came to me.
"Well, Hyatt's calf was harder than the other chap's, that's all," he
said.
"Which _is_ Myatt?" I asked, for the red and the white dolls had all
vanished at close quarters, and were replaced by unrecognizably gigantic
human animals, still clad, however, in dolls' vests and dolls'
knickerbockers.
Stirling warningly jerked his head to indicate a man not ten feet away
from me. This was Myatt, the hero of the host and the darling of
populations. I gazed up at him. His mouth and his left knee were red
with blood, and he was piebald with thick patches of mud from his
tousled crown to his enormous boot. His blue eyes had a heavy, stupid,
honest glance; and of the three qualities stupidity predominated. He
seemed to be all feet, knees, hands and elbows. His head was very
small--the sole remainder of the doll in him.
A little man approached him, conscious--somewhat too obviously
conscious--of his right to approach. Myatt nodded.
"Ye'n settled _him_, seemingly, Jos!" said the little man.
"Well," said Myatt, with slow bitterness. "Hadn't he been blooming well
begging and praying for it, aw afternoon? Hadn't he now?"
The little man nodded. Then he said in a lower tone:
"How's missis, like?"
"Her's altogether yet," said Myatt. "Or I'd none ha' played!"
"I've bet Watty half-a-dollar as it inna' a lad!" said the little man.
Myatt seemed angry.
"Wilt bet me half a _quid_ as it inna' a lad?" he demanded, bending down
and scowling and sticking out his muddy chin.
"Ay!" said the little man, not blenching.
"Evens?"
"Evens."
"I'll take thee, Charlie," said Myatt, resuming his calm.
The whistle sounded. And several orders were given to clear the field.
Eight minutes had been lost over a broken leg, but Stirling said that
the referee would surely deduct them from the official time, so that
after all the game would not be shortened.
"I'll be up yon, to-morra morning," said the little man.
Myatt nodded and departed. Charlie, the little man, turned on his heel
and proudly rejoined the crowd. He had been seen of all in converse with
supreme greatness.
Stirling and I also retired; and though Jos Myatt had not even done his
doctor the honour of seeing him, neither of us, I think, was quite
without a consciousness of glory: I cannot imagine why. The rest of the
game was flat and tame. Nothing occurred. The match ended in a draw.