Was professional football a wickedness in a time of war? Melbourne's Argus reported Mr Adamson, headmaster of Melbourne's Wesley College, laying down the law for his pupils 100 years ago this week.
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"The various games and sports must now be judged by one standard only. Does a game or competition offer any inducement to men to abstain from enlisting? If so then it should cease during the war."
Here the headmaster offered irrefutable evidence that, yes, professional footballers, very fit men who should be in uniform, were preferring to stay at home and play football.
"What then," he continued, "is our patriotic duty as Australians and as public school people?"
"Some of you have been in the habit of attending football matches, but you cannot be faithful to your vows and do so any longer. Every sixpence you spend to see a professional football match helps clubs to indirectly induce men to stay away from the fighting line. As Wesley boys who have over 180 of your own school fellows engaged in this war you must sacrifice your inclinations in this matter if your inclinations help the non-enlisters' payroll.
"Any day now you may open the morning paper to read the first list of Australian casualties. What if that paper is a Saturday issue? Would you still go to see the paid football circus perform that afternoon if the names of [former Wesley boys you know] were in the list of those who had made the supreme sacrifice? You would not. You could not."
