Card of the Day: The King at Twickenham

Uh oh. More sports stuff. While Queen Mary wasn’t too keen on sporting events, King George V did enjoy watching a good football or rugby match. Especially after the Great War, the King was eager to support events and activities which served to bolster national morale. Chief among those events were sporting matches which brought people from all over Britain together.
The thirty-first in the Silver Jubilee series of cigarette cards produced by Wills’s Cigarette Company in 1935 shows King George V at a rugby match at Twickenham.


The reverse of the card reads:

THE KING AT TWICKENHAM


Few public appearances can give the King warmer pleasure than his visits to Twickenham for Rugby Football matches, for he possesses a knowledge of the Rugby Union game which, by its minuteness and exhaustiveness has astonished many a famous player. His Majesty is seen on the field greeting the English Fifteen that met Scotland on March 15, 1928. The match which was won by England by six points to none was memorable as a battle between two splendid packs, and Scotland were unlucky to never cross the line. By this victory, England retrieved the Calcutta Cup and gained the International Championship.

I guess England won. As for the rest, who knows? But, here’s a picture—a tiny, little picture from that 1928 match. Again, who knows?