Alan Greenwood

By a margin of 65 votes, Nashuans on Tuesday rejected the concept of sports books in the city.

To those who voted against the measure, odds are you associate gambling on sporting events with evils such as drugs, prostitution, violence and any other seedy mayhem and misadventures that invade fertile, if narrow minds.

Watch any old, old movie in which gambling is an element and you’ll get the general idea.

But don’t try to convince anti-gambling crusaders that they are truly clueless on the subject lest you risk an eternity in Satan’s lair.

It isn’t as if betting on sports doesn’t already exist in the city. Apparently bringing it out of the shadows and into the sunlight of legality would somehow bring the city to its knees.

Sports betting in Nashua would lure folks from throughout the region to visit and spend money. Drawing bettors from Massachusetts seems in sync with the strategy displayed by South Nashua business people that, generally speaking, has been a booming success.

We wouldn’t want that downtown, now would we?

TIME TRAVEL: Nov. 7, 1949 – Listed prominently among habits that time cannot not submerge there is the cry, “We were robbed!” after a particularly nagging defeat.

And when a coach as dynamic as Buzz Harvey growls about the officiating it is only natural that the local scribes are going to listen.

So, Telegraph sports editor Frank Stawasz took up Harvey’s cause after the Nashua High football team lost, 25-7, to Worcester Trade.

“… We’ve never yet run into a head linesman the likes of Phil Flannagan, the roly-poly gent from Clinton, Mass., who served in that capacity at Worcester yesterday afternoon.

“Harvey, bitter in defeat yesterday, was vehement in announcing he would not bring his team back to Worcester again after such a shoddy job of officiating by linesman Flannagan. From where we watched yesterday’s game. Which was directly opposite the line of scrimmage (directly behind Mr. Flannagan) on the sidelines because they have no press box there, Harvey’s anger was more than justified. I would suggest, however, that the that the cause of the unhappy state of affairs was strictly a case of mistaken identity.

“It could be that linesman Phil Flannagan thought that he was the referee, not the linesman, because spent the afternoon looking for everything but offsides.”

For the record, Nashua was whistled for nine penalties costing it 95 yards while Worcester Trade drew three flags for 25 yards.

Contact Alan Greenwood at 594-1248 or agreenwood@nashuatelegraph.com.

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