"Our first meetings on shore got on so well that we decided to get up some kind of a game with them. It was out of the question for us to try to play their baseball or football, just as it was for them to tackle our cricket. But we had heard that one of their ships had been having a try at our Association football, and on the strength of this we sent them a challenge for a game of 'Soccer.' The fact that they jumped at the chance to take us on at a game at which they had practically no experience at is the best evidence of the kind of sporting spirit we have found the Yanks showing about everything. "When the time for the game came there is no denying that we began to get rather nervous; not because we were not sure we were going to give them a licking (for ours is the champion Soccer team of the Grand Fleet), but because we weren't quite sure what we were going up against. (There goes another Yankeeism, just because it puts the thing better than any words in our own language.) We had read of what a shambles the field at an American football game was, and of how the men fought in armour, like the knights of the crusades, and of how each team was attended by its own stretcher-bearers and casualty clearing station. Frankly, we were afraid that they might take the occasion to 'Yankefy' Soccer along these lines. As a precautionary measure, we made a point of getting shore leave for just as many men as possible, so as to be sure of being in sufficient force to back up our boys if it came to a fight for life. Indeed, we were much relieved to find on landing that the British bluejackets outnumbered the American by three to one, and that there were no evidences of hospital arrangements.