Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1912 — SCANDAL IN ENGLISH RUGBY [ARTICLE]

SCANDAL IN ENGLISH RUGBY

Many Devonshire Players Receive Compensation for Lost Time in Addition to Expenses. English Rugby football is faced with a scandal which may lead to a wider breach in the English Rugby Union as that which caused the formation of the Northern Union in the nineties. Rugby is ostensibly a purely amateur game in England In distinction to the association game, which is played largely by professional teams. Recently the Northern Union adherents Invaded Devonshire and attempted to recruit players from the existing Rugby clubs. This campaign led to the exposure of the fact that many of the Devonshire players were receiving compensation for time lost from work in addition to their expenses while playing with their teams. This practice is open among the teams of the Northern Union, which has revised the Rugby rules until the form It plays is so strenuous that professional players are necessary for a successful team. Some of the Devonshire players who have been suspended for negotiating with the Northern Union invaders state that the payment for lost time is general in the Rugby Union, and they declare that they will expose the system at the investigation which has been ordered by the governing committee of the union. The scandal comes at a particularly inopportune time, as the South African Springboks have recently commenced a tour of the Rugby Union. England is particularly anxious to present an unbroken front to the Invaders in order to wipe out the inbroken series of defeats which the last South African team Inflicted on the English fifteens several years ago. During that tour the South Africans suffered only one reverse, and that was at the hands of the Scottish Union. The present invadors declare that they will return home with a clean score, and they are determined to show the Scots that their victory was a fluke.