But that hasn’t stopped coaches from resurrecting the move from time to time. The flying wedge is also banned in rugby. However, there’s another sport where the tactic crops up every now and then. I can’t show you any television clips from American Football because the move was banned in the early 20 th century. It was common for players to have leather handles on their uniforms to tighten their grip. The players in the wedge didn’t just stand close to each other, they were tightly bound to each other. The entire mass of the wedge would drive into him at a full run. The entire wedge would aim itself at one player on the other team. The heavier players on the team would form up into a tight wedge, holding onto each other. The flying wedge was the ultimate mass motion play in the early days of football. The death rate drew the ire of reporters, college presidents, and a president of the United States.įinally, it was banned! But what was the flying wedge exactly? Let’s take a closer look. Then the rate of injuries and deaths became heavily scrutinized. First, it became immensely popular with fans. The flying wedge went through three phases in its history. The battering ram was violent but not as effective as another play: the flying wedge. His team would run down the field swinging him like a battering ram at the other team. Here’s one of the craziest: coaches would put a player in a leather straight jacket with handles. It was common in the sport to punch or choke a player to make him drop the ball.Īnd coaches devised some crazily violent tactics for attacking play. Rules changed continuously in response to innovations by players and coaches.Īnything that would give an advantage was tried. The sport was developing rapidly in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. Violent Tactics In Early American Football This article runs through the history of the play and why it was banned from the sport. The single most infamous play from this era was the flying wedge. What I witnessed yesterday was not mere bravery and brute force, but the sum of intelligent training and drilling.In the early days, American Football was a violent and chaotic game that doesn’t bear much resemblance to the game we know now. They have every bit the fighting constitution that we do. I wish Father were here to see it, to see that the Saysquack are not the feeble, cowering simpletons he takes them for. I don’t know whether to pity the poor bastards or be grateful they were so terrified of us - but either way, the advantage was ours. We learned from our prisoners that they’d heard tales of cannibalism and worse from the Saysquack. Many of the poor sods were so terrified they shot themselves where they stood, before we could persuade them to surrender. High Command later said they’d never seen anything like it. Seeing this, the enemy’s nerve broke and we rushed in the final few feet, swarming their trenches. The Saysquacks plunged forward through the chaos and tossed aside the advancing soldiers as a child brushing away biscuit crumbs. They made a kind of war cry and stiffened their resolve, holding their ground as the Germans came at us in waves. Thanks to our training, some of the Saysquacks were able to get on their Lewis guns and return fire, bringing down a few of the planes.Įventually, by keeping on together, we methodically slogged our way to the edge of No Man’s Land, where the enemy infantry surged forward and hit us with everything it had. Since my human frame was too weak to wield one of these gargantuan shields, I huddled next to Herbert, my Saysquack sergeant and batman (valet). Our advance was slowed by the shields and by the fact that the Jerries sent a pursuit squadron of aero-planes to harry us, repeatedly buzzing back and forth, strafing us with machine gun fire as we stopped and took shelter below our bulletproof shields. We crossed No Man’s Land in a flying wedge formation - a type of infantry tactic used by ancient Roman troops that allowed us to make maximum use of our huge shields (it takes about three very strong men to lift one Sayquack’s shield). There were about 1,200 us - all Saysquacks except for me and several lieutenants - as we went over the top after Fritz heavily bombarded our position. Diary of Captain Branwell Browntrout, 2nd Olympian Saysquack, Battle of St.
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