Page:Charleston • Irwin Faris • (1941).pdf/169

 allowed to retain his individual opinion, though various letters appeared in the Westport Times upholding opposing views. The actual winners were the several booths on the sandhills, one of which (Behan & Kelly’s) is credited with having taken more than two hundred pounds. In the evening a grand ball was held at Charleston, admittance one guinea, and was doubtless a gay gathering after the events of the day. It is believed that the Charleston team was: T. Dollman, W. H. Hillyar, B. Shepherd, P. Kilmartin, P. O’Callaghan, E. Drennan, J. O’Rourke, P. O’Conor, W. Hartill, R. Treadwell, T. Dwan, T. G. Macarthy, Thos. Lander, A. Condon, W. Mullins, with Jas Hatch, F. McParland, D. Collins, and W. Murphy as emergencies.

The first real Football Club was formed in 1888, a combination of town and beach players, who formed opposing sides for local matches or trial practices, usually in Parsons’ paddock at Little Beach, with the Welcome Inn close by. Having but one ball, each faction had the use of it on alternative week-ends. Records of outside matches are not available, but at least one match was played at Westport, when the portrait of the team, shown herein, was taken. In the late ’eighties or early ‘nineties, the boys of the State School maintained a Football Club known as “the Tittlebats and Grasshoppers,” and local matches were staged between teams therefrom, representing Town and Beach respectively. This team played at least one match at Westport.

There was not any Athletic Club at Charleston, and the so-called sports meetings were but combinations of sport and picnic, held in early days upon Charleston Flat, but in later times upon Parsons’ Paddock or on the Picnic Ground on the south side of the Nile; actually a part of the Nile Farm—a lovely spot, as previously stated.

The meetings were not annual fixtures, but arranged from time to time for the benefit of the hospital funds; nevertheless eagerly looked forward to by one and all. They were usually one-day meetings, but it is recorded that in 1868 one extended to two days, 26th and 28th December. Good