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The grand game in St. Catharines took a major
setback in 1899 when a visiting Orangeville Dufferin player was severely attacked during a
match and then again after the game's completion. The local fifth estate
was in a petulant mood after this ugly incident, and rightly so.
The Athletics would withdraw from competition
before the end of the season as well as suspend operations for the entire
season of 1900.
THE
LACROSSE EXECUTIVE’S DUTY
A
STANDARD EDITORIAL
The
Daily Standard
Thursday,
July 20, 1899
Some of the members of the
Athletic Lacrosse club felt very keenly the strictures of the Standard and
the other local papers on Tuesday’s game. We are not surprised at
that—indeed, it would be cause for wonder if they had
become so callous as to regard with composure an outburst of disgust from
spectators of the game such as was never before occasioned in this city
and was only accurately reflected in the city press. It won’t do,
however, just to wait until the bad feeling aroused against the game
passes away in course of time. That is too slow a process. There are other
games scheduled to be played here, and if the club desires the patronage
of those who desire to see good clean lacrosse without slugging or other
brutal features, it must give some evidence of its disapproval of those
who gave Tuesday’s game its disagreeable and disgusting features.
Richardson must be absolutely barred from playing in any matches in this
city, and any other members of the team who have displayed a tendency to
roughness warned that hereafter the managing committee will not tolerate
in the team anything but gentlemanly playing. The people must be shown
that the fastest and cleanest lacrosse can be played by gentlemen and can
be patronized by ladies and other spectators without danger of being
called upon to be involuntary eye witnesses of a slugging match. A duty
devolves upon the officers and managing committee to purge the game in
this city of the slugging element, and when they have done this, and can
assure the public of not merely close and exciting games, but clean,
sportsmanlike and gentlemanly lacrosse, then the old-time fervent interest
in the game will be aroused, the best class of citizens will attend the
matches, and the sight of well-filled grand-stand and bleachers once again
cheer the hearts of the club management.
In regard to the duty of an officer at a lacrosse
game, the chief explains that a policeman, unless he actually sees an
assault committed, cannot make an arrest, but must wait to do so until
armed with a formal authority in the shape of a warrant. Officer Ross says
that he did not actually see the assault committed upon Dowling, as he was
outside the gate at the time, but he then hurried in and assisted in
keeping the crowd back. Had he seen the blow struck, the chief says that
Ross would not for a moment have hesitated in arresting the one who did
it. What the Orangeville manager should have done, he says, was to have
laid an information in the case before he left the city.
Story footnote: Fred Dowling of
the Orangeville Dufferins would eventually become Rev. F. S. Dowling of the First United Church in
St. Catharines
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