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72.The game entered its long drag... At one point I turned too slowly and unbalanced and heard it credited with a noise from the crowd as a dark shape passed me, shooting up mud either side. A roar drew a curtain round the ground. We lined up behind the posts. Overhead in the low cloud, an aircraft thundered.
I watched the placing of the ball carefully, the meticulous run of the kicker, the swing through of his leg, the small shape spinning silently through the rain and curving between the posts. A crisp eruption by the crowd.
David Storey, This Sporting Life, Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, 1960, p. 254.
PLACE: Lancashire, England
TIME: 1950
Frank tried again, pumping his huge body forward and concealing his grunt of pain as he was flung down. He had another go, and with a cry of frustration and rage, he was seized, lifted and turned over before being dropped on his head and shoulders. He wheezed like a beaten machine as his skull drove into the earth.
The indignity brought a mixed cry of wonder and amusement from the crowd.
David Storey, This Sporting Life, Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, 1960, p. 254 - 255.
PLACE: Lancashire, England
TIME: 1950
Ten years of this, ten years of the crowd - I could make one mistake, one slight mistake only, and the whole tragedy of living, of being alive, would come into the crowds throat and roar its pain like a maimed animal. The cry, the rage of the crowd echoed over and filled the valley - a shape came towards me in the gloom.
I glimpsed the fierce and brilliant whiteness of its eyes and clenched teeth through its mask of mud, flashing with a useless hostility. It avoided my preparations to delay it,...I put my foot out, and as the man stumbled took a swing with my fist. I missed, and fell down with a huge sound from the crowd. The man recovered and went on running. He ran between the posts. Frank picked me up, the mud covering my tears. Where's the bleeding fullback? I wanted to shout. But I could only stare unbelievingly at my legs which had betrayed me.
David Storey, This Sporting Life, Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, 1960, p. 255 - 256.
PLACE: Lancashire, England
TIME: 1950
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