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The Return of Football
Football will return this term as a full sports option after an absence of 83 years.
The game was being played at the School in 1890 when the first edition of
The
Abingdonian
was published, but in 1922 it was replaced by hockey in the Lent term, and
in 1928 by rugby in the Michaelmas term. In the early days, reports in
The Abingdonian
were much blunter than we would expect to see today: of a goalkeeper, “it would be
better if he were taller and not so self-confident”, and of a back that he was “too small
to occupy the post with any great success.” There were constant references to the old-
fashioned quality ‘pluck’, mixed with such timeless advice as “a match is never over until
time is called”. The footballers wore cerise shirts with white sleeves and the caps were
half cerise and half white – the rugby players originally wore yellow and black.
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100 Years Ago – plus ça change?
The minute book of the Abingdon School Literary, Scientific and Debating Society has
recently come to light recording the first ever meeting of the Society on 10 November
1904 when the motion, ‘In the opinion of this House the adoption of conscription would
be advantageous to this country’, was lost by 10 votes to 20. Seven years later the
motion ‘In the opinion of this House compulsory military training should be adopted in
England’ was carried by 15 votes to 8. Other 1911 motions included, ‘This House would
welcome the complete success of the rebellion in China’, carried by 15 votes to 7; ‘In
the opinion of this House Old Age Pensions in their present form are a source of evil’,
lost by 13 to 8, and ‘In the opinion of this
House the Government should prevent by
legislation the possible recurrence of such
strikes as those of this summer,’ which
was carried by 10 votes to 9.
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Miss Florey
Anne Florey, an Australian, was
the School matron from 1922
until her retirement in 1947. A
qualified nurse she had served
in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia
during the First World War with the
Queen Alexandra Imperial Military
Nursing Service. To many OAs of
that era, Miss Florey with her little
dog and her emphasis on good
manners, together with Mr Grundy
the Headmaster, epitomised the
School. OAs report that she often
talked about her brother and the
important work that he was doing
in Oxford, but no one thought
anything of it until the day in 1945
when Mr Grundy announced that
there would be a half-holiday in
honour of Miss Florey’s brother
who had just been awarded the
Nobel Prize for Medicine. Her
brother was of course Howard
Florey, the man whose pioneering
work on the medical use of
penicillin transformed medicine.
n
out of the past
14
September 2011
The minute book together with the heavy
brass stamp used to emboss the cover.
1894 1st XI with printed fixtures’ programme
Dr Hubert Zawadzki, for many years
master-in-charge of the Debating
Society, will chair a Dinner Debate for
both OAs and current members of
the School on Friday 18 November
2011. The motion will be, ‘This House
believes that your school days are the
best days of your life’.