Thanks to Boston College Ireland, Century Ireland is a great little haven for snippets for what life was like 100 years ago. Today they've posted a story from 13 December 1913 that paints a remarkably similar football scene to the scandals that have besmirched the game over the last couple of months.
The news surrounds a football betting scandal that rocked England when a man was arrested after approaching West Brom captain Jesse Pennington to see if he would go about fixing a game.
It reads:
'The Smithwick Police took a London man into custody charged under the Corrupt Practices Act, after approaching Mr Pennington, captain of West Bromwich Albion football team and offering him £55 if he would arrange that the math against Everton resulted in a draw or victory for Everton.'
It goes on:
'There have been reports of similar stories in other parts of the country. An unknown man offered a bribe of £57 10s to Frank Womack, captain of the Birmingham team, to lose the match against Grimsby. Efforts are currently being made to identify the culprit.'
You can read the full article on the RTÉ website here.
hat-tip: Thanks to Matt Stapleton for alerting us to this.
