The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1903. OUR SPORTS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LIII, Issue 2772, 15 May 1903, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1903. OUR SPORTS.

There does seem to be a bit of a. stir amongst the dry bones of Peninsula Athletics. There is a fair promise of football having a merrier time this season, and, we hear, the Empire Day Sports are also going to be well supported. The late Hon. Sec. pulled matters well together and left the Committee in a better position than they have held for some years, and now Mr G. Armstrong, junr., has taken charge, we may expect still further improvement. There has been no more steady and persistent supporter of these sports than the present Hon. Sec. Through good and evil report, prosperity and adversity, he has ever been ready with his heartiest help, and we sincerely hope that he may retain the post lie has now taken for a decide, and bring back some {shadow of their pristine glory to the Akaroa Athletic Sports. We presume that as far an our men are concerned we must still go on in tho old way and offer tolerably substantial prizes to ensure good entries. It has always been the custom on the Peninsula and is still pursued at those little sports and school sports gatherings that have so feebly taken the place of the big athletic meetings at Little Kiver and Duvaucheile's. At those regularly expected annual sports there were many athletes from Christchurch and elsewhere present, and a man had to be pretty well up to the mark to win any of the principal events, Now, in these sad days of decadence we have almost to beg contestants to enter and accept the prizes contributed by the public. A different state of things, however, is beginning to prevail in Akaroa, and we fancy we see a rift in the clouds. It has always been, to our mind, a pitiable thing that our youngsters have been encouraged to run for small sums of money and to treat sport as a mercantile transaction. The result has been to make greed show its ugly face at all these gatherings. Boys, who think another can run a little faster, or jump a little higher than themselves, will not risk their sixpences for entry; but slouch about, with their hands in their pockets, waiting for the time when it will be their turn to have the best chance of'" grabbing the tin." There /

is no desiro to emulate -nowish to have their names recorded-in most cases; but only a determination to get as much as they can out of the transaction. Such a state of things should not be allowed to exist, and the sooner it comes to an end the better. Encouraging boys to run for money, and think only of winning that money, has tho most deteriorating effect nnd does away with the undoubted benefits that athletic sports confer on those that practise them. That most successful of all our local institutions, the Akaroa Boating Club, is a clear proof that our boys and young mon lovo sport for its own sake and not for mercenary reasons. There, the members compete at considerable expense to themselves for the honour and glory of the club they so worthily represent. The repulsive feature of personal gain is eliminated, and, in its stead, a worthy desire for the weal of the commonwealth is inculcated. Why, then, cannot this same principle be applied to our athletic sports ? at least as far as the rising generation are concerned. We have now a High School in our midst, at which boys of from fifteen to sixteen are educated, and in the upper standards of the country schools-as we saw by the relay race competition—there are many youngsters old enough to take part "in athletic sports. Cannot a Juvenile Peninsula Athletic Club be formed out of these materials, a club presided over by our High School master, in which the children shall be taught like the boys of the public schools in England and the big Colonial centres, that honour is the chief aim to seek in athletic competition ? We are sure were such a club started there would be no difficulty in getting the "many "Old Sports," resident on the Peninsula, to give challenge cups and challenge shields for the schools and sections of the schools to worthily struggle for. There would be no [lack of incentive were the ball once set rolling. It is an undoubted fact that the sooner such a course is pursued the better for all our youngsters ; for, as yet, we have grossly neglected giving them a knowledge of what true sport really H Such a knowledge is not only useful in their earlier years, but is also a great advantage when, in the time to come, they are called upon to mix in that great world, where the true and zealous sport, void of mercenary instincts, is always most appreciated by his fellow men.