SPORTS TOPICS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 85, 20 January 1938, Page 2

SPORTS TOPICS

FOOTBALL IN EARLY DAYS. CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS. (“By Flagpole.”) To-Night— Ashburton Slumming Club’s Carnival. Saturday Cricket Competitions. Junior Tennis Competitions. Ellesmere v. Mid-Canterbury, tennis at Leeston. Ashburton v. Linwood 1 , and Allenton v. Methven, howls. January 26: East Ashburton Swimming Carnival. Athletic Meeting. An extract from a diary kept in 1710 by a Swedish student on a visit to England has an interesting account of a football match played in Leicester :

1710, July 10, Leicester.—The County town of Leicester, rather big and beautiful. I did not stop here, but only went through the town. After I had left it, I .saw an immense crowd of people on one side of the road; they shouted, turned, ran, laughed, making it obvious that something was going on. Also, there were a lot of people running about in their shirt-sleeves and with white trousers, though what precisely they were doing I was unable to see, since I was too far away. “I rode there and saw that they were playing a game which they call fudaboll. It consists therein; that since the town had two parishes, twelve persons (who are to play against one another) are chosen from each parish. They play on a long smooth field, and each have a goal. It is just like a cavalier tournament.

“They first meeting in the middle of the field, being an' equal distance from their goals. Then they have a ball as big as a head and filled inside with hair or something else so that it will be light. The ball is thrown up in the air; then each side tries to kick it into their opponents’ the side having won that first kicks it into the goal. For this they are knubbling (incidentally, the writer uses here an English loanword: ‘Knubias’), shouting, crowding and fighting so that they bleed from their noses and mouths, tear the shirts and clothes off one another, and the one is deemed the most courageous who finishes the most torn and bruised. “A courageous hero who was among them was naked to his hips, having, no doubt, had to sacrifice his shirt in order to kick the ball once. And the others, sweating and bleeding- from nose and mouth, put their hands on their hips and were hard from their difficult work. But he who could kick the ball higher than the others was, indeed, proud ; then all the people standing round the players shouted a fearful cry of delight, behaved absurdly, thronged and straightening their shoulders, and let ‘hasai, hasai’ (the usual English cry of joy) be heard unto heaven. After such a successful and well ended fight they go to drink. I took no part in thqt joy, but continued on horseback. Admired, as always before, what a splendid and fine country is this England ...” Springboks the Best? Stated in New Zealand that the South Africans are the best Rugby Union team that ever visited that country. Our own correspondent in his Test cable reported this to be a general opinion over there (writes “Qynic” in the “Sydney Referee”). One wonders. We Tnaj' recall one British team that revealed to Australians greater Rugby than the South Africans showed in their Sydney matches. It was led by D. R. Bedell-Sivright, the Scottish forward. Apparently that team did not rise to similar eminence in their brief New Zealand campaign.

Bedell Sivright’s men, on their New Zealand tour, after finishing in Australia, played only five matches and were defeated in the only test by 9 to 3. That British team tackled New Zealand in its greatest period, that is, the year in which the most famous of All Black teams started on the most outstanding Rugby tour in history, one that changed the face of Rugby football in Great Britain.

On Australian farm Sivright’s was a more perfect combination and more fascinating to watch than the Springboks. They played the 3-2-3 formation. Great scrummagers, ruckers, and lineout men, they were hummers in the loose with Sivright himself and A. F. Harding forwards of exceptional allround qualities. One would say that this pair at that time were more versatile than any forward of the Springboks on tour in Australia.

Life-Saving. Surf clubs should use some means of determining the amount of pressure resuseitators place on patients, said Professor W. 11. Davies, in an Australian paper. He lectured on resuscitation to officials of the Surf Life Saving Association. “In the case of children or delicate persons ft would not be advisable for a heavy operator to put his whole weight on to the patient’s back.” He was satisfied that the Shaeffer method adopted by the Surf Life Saving Association was the best. Comparing the methods used by the Royal Life Saving Society and the S.L.S.A., Professor Davies said they were both very effective, but the Royal Society methods were more fatiguing.