Novel Military Sports at Reading, Berkshire - football in sacks and 'Donkey Derby' - 1915.

Soldiers entertain audience with silly sports performance. First they play football in large sacks; hopping around chasing the ball; kicking; etc. (It looks very funny! - SL.)

Then a very wacky 'sport': wheelbarrow with one guy pushing and another guy as passenger comes racing under a gallows type structure with a trough on top. The passenger has a long spear; which he uses to knock down a load of water on the two of them - splash! - I think that the idea is to get the spear through a hole so that it doesn't flip the trough over. Another team simultaneously did the same. They fall out of the wheelbarrows; stand up brushing themselves off; etc.

Next; the Donkey Derby; in which guys try to get legendarily stubborn donkeys or mules through fairly narrow spaces and of course (ha ha) can't make them budge. One guy in BG is even trying to move the animal by getting in front of it and grabbing the creature's front legs and walking forward. Which looks completely ridiculous.

Slapstick, comedy, contests.

G 340 A.