She endeavoured to look like a serious politician.

“You are nothing but a cuckoo,” Denry pleasantly informed her.  “Football has got to do with everything.  And it’s been a disastrous mistake in my career that I’ve never taken any interest in football.  Old Barlow wants no urging on to wind up the Football Club.  He’s absolutely set on it.  He’s lost too much over it.  If I could stop him from winding it up, I might....”

“What?”

“I dunno.”

She perceived that his idea was yet vague.

II

Not very many days afterwards the walls of Bursley called attention, by small blue and red posters (blue and red being the historic colours of the Bursley Football Club), to a public meeting, which was to be held in the Town Hall, under the presidency of the Mayor, to consider what steps could be taken to secure the future of the Bursley Football Club.

There were two “great” football clubs in the Five Towns—­Knype, one of the oldest clubs in England, and Bursley.  Both were in the League, though Knype was in the first division while Bursley was only in the second.  Both were, in fact, limited companies, engaged as much in the pursuit of dividends as in the practice of the one ancient and glorious sport which appeals to the reason and the heart of England. (Neither ever paid a dividend.) Both employed professionals, who, by a strange chance, were nearly all born in Scotland; and both also employed trainers who, before an important match, took the teams off to a hydropathic establishment far, far distant from any public-house. (This was called “training.”) Now, whereas the Knype Club was struggling along fairly well, the Bursley Club had come to the end of its resources.  The great football public had practically deserted it.  The explanation, of course, was that Bursley had been losing too many matches.  The great football public had no use for anything but victories.  It would treat its players like gods—­so long as they won.  But when they happened to lose, the great football public simply sulked.  It did not kick a man that was down; it merely ignored him, well knowing that the man could not get up without help.  It cared nothing whatever for fidelity, municipal patriotism, fair play, the chances of war, or dividends on capital.  If it could see victories it would pay sixpence, but it would not pay sixpence to assist at defeats.

Still, when at a special general meeting of the Bursley Football Club, Limited, held at the registered office, the Coffee House, Bursley, Councillor Barlow, J.P., Chairman of the Company since the creation of the League, announced that the Directors had reluctantly come to the conclusion that they could not conscientiously embark on the dangerous risks of the approaching season, and that it was the intention of the Directors to wind up the club, in default of adequate public interest—­ when Bursley read this in the Signal, the town was certainly shocked.  Was the famous club, then, to disappear for ever, and the football ground to be sold in plots, and the grand stand for firewood?  The shock was so severe that the death of Alderman Bloor (none the less a mighty figure in Bursley) had passed as a minor event.