26.2 by John Bryant

Author:John Bryant [John Bryant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782196204
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

– CHAPTER 22 –

THE TUG-OF-WAR NATIONS

One of the great joys for Dorando was the sight of London policemen, so tall and so solid in their heavy boots. In his letters to Teresa back in Carpi, he would write of their reassuring and colourful presence on the streets of London.

Inspector Harry Duke of the City of London Police was no ordinary policeman, however. He was a cross-channel swimmer and a wrestling champion, but his pride and joy was his police tug-of-war team: he was their mentor and their coach.

But what got the British policemen into the headlines on both sides of the Atlantic in 1908 were their boots. They were standard issue police boots, the sort used by Bobbies up and down the land in 1908 to pound the beat, but they caused a furore.

In 1908, the tug-of-war was a fiercely competed Olympic event. It proved a great spectator sport at athletic meetings in Britain and was a favourite whenever a ship pulled into a port in some far outpost of the Empire or when a regiment was sent to some faraway colonial outpost. This was an exciting team event and one that always had supporters cheering and urging on the battling squads. And as with all competition for the 1908 Games, Theodore Cook had carefully drawn up the rules of engagement.

The rule regarding footwear in the tug-of-war event read: ‘No competitor shall wear prepared boots or shoes or boots with any projecting nails, tips, point, hollows or projections of any kind. No competitor shall make any hole in the ground with his feet or in any other way before the start.’

In the first pull of the Olympic competition, the Americans faced a British team composed of Liverpool policemen. The New York Times reported that the Americans complained that the British wore heavy boots with steel rims, violating the regulations regarding footwear. After being pulled over with ease by the team of Liverpool policemen, the Americans appeared to give up. Angry and muttering among themselves, they walked off the field. The heated protest made headlines in the American papers. The New York Times read:

ENGLISH UNFAIR IN OLYMPIC GAMES. US protests against method of holding the Tug of War. Liverpool team wears monstrous shoes that arouse ire of Americans who kick in vain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.