American Old Time Song Lyrics: 55 The Irish Foot Ball Game

Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 55

THE IRISH FOOT-BALL GAME.
Copyright, 1896, by T. B Harms & Co.
Words and Music by Safford Waters.

Thanksgiving Day was over, and the boys upon the height
Had watched old Yale and Harvard in their yearly foot-ball fight,
When Casey says to Dolan, "Let's get up a team," says he,
"And challenge all the sheenies that live on the Bowery."
And so It was decided, and the day at last was set;
The place was Murphy's vacant lot, the ground was soft and wet;
The story of the massacre is what I'm going to tell,
And if you'd been within a mile ye'd heard Pat Casey yell:

Chorus.
"Line up, stand up, don't yez hear me call,
The audience is waitin' and we cannot find the ball;
Murphy, Dolan, can't yez quit yer scraps?
And when the game is over yez can kill them sheeny chaps."

If you'd a seen the uniforms the boys had on that day.
Their rubber boots and rubber snoots would take your breath away;
With liver pads and bandages they swaddled every limb,
Pat Casey's dad stuffs furniture, so he upholstered him.
And Casey had the dandy scheme to win that foot-ball game,
'Twas tough upon the other team, but got there all the same.
Says he, "Each one pick out yer man and do him up," says he,
"And then we'll simply rush the ball to glorious victory." - Chorus.

We followed out his orders and in just ten minutes more,
We'd made a hundred touchdowns and we'd kicked goals by the score;
We sailed into the other team and wiped the earth with them:
We grabbed 'em by their top-knots And we yanked 'em limb from limb;
We danced on them, we sat on them, we stumped them in the ground,
The fragments of that other team were strewn for blocks around,
And Casey says, "At ' three gold balls' them fellows may have luck,
But when it comes to one pig-skin it takes old Irish pluck." - Chorus.