"Lord, I don't ask that I should win, but please, please don't let me finish behind Akabusi."
Great men
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TS Wright London: The Epworth Press, 1951
The book is of interest as one of the “great men” included was HH Almond, Headmaster of Loretto School 1882-1903. He also refereed the first ever rugby international between England and Scotland.
The chapter on Almond begins with account of a school match in which his school team had been winning with two minutes to go only to lose in the last minute. The captain came across to the headmaster and said “Wasn't that a great game Sir, the best I've ever played it”. The response would have pleased Almond immensely as he believed that sport was to be played in the right spirit.
The book says that his school had done a tremendous amount to give to schools today the spirit with which we always associate with the finest type of sportsmanship. He was very much ahead of his time in understanding the importance of school sport for teaching life lessons - trust and responsibility and of course sportsmanship.
He thought that team sports taught boys that the purpose of life should not be a selfish one but one which sought the best for the community, achieved by making yourself the best possible self you could be in order to be a help not a hindrance to the community. Initiative and character were two aspects that he stressed.
The book says that while we may now recognize and support the values that he was building his life around, in his own time “he was fighting all the way an uphill battle against so many of the conventions of his age”.
The book quotes someone describing Almond as “a muscular Christian combining the virtues of Thomas Arnold and Charles Kingsley” adding that the pupils of Loretto as they lived with and listened to Almond surely must have felt much as Thomas Hughes and his generation felt as they sat and listened to Thomas Arnold at Rugby school