FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 16

FOOTBALL.

An intimation has reached the Wellington Rugby Union from the City Council, that when the city reserves are being allocated for next winter, each sport would get consideration according to the number of players taking part in it. This is how R. Edgren, the well-known sports writer and caricaturist, writes in the "Xew York World" on American football:—The football season ie with us again. Once more we can hear the merry snouts of the s-urgeone as they frisk lightly along the side linos, taking a leg here and an eye there. Once more we are cheered by the gladeome crunch of iron spike meeting clavicle or frontal bone. The day of. the horrid brutality of the Boz padded glove has slipped by for the present, and now we rejoice exceedingly in seeing the skilful use of bare knuckle and bony knee, of the epearlike elbow, the useful heel, the solid boiu> head, the shoulder. Prize-fighting ,at best is a tame game beeide football. Fighters may be strenuous, but oh, you footballer! By a late English mail received in Wellington came an offer from one of th-s wealthiest of the Xorthern Union clubs.

in the Old Country for one of Wellington's test amateur Rugby players of last season, to take passage for England on the strength of a three Tears' engagement at £350 per year. It is understood that the player to whom the offer has ■been made trill elect to remain in tho. Dominion. It is known that the Nor-th-em Union League promoters have had •missionaries out in various parts of this Island ■with, the object of obtaining the sen-ices of several Rugby top-notchers [ for their pet code next year, and that half a dozen men, at least, have signified their intention to throw up their old love. The League people are very i pleased at the prospect of three or four well-known exponents of the game in the Old Country being on hand in these parts when the 1910 events come up for decision. Says an English writer on the Northern Union game: Nobody objects to see the colonial development of the game. To be candid, we would have preferred that, development to have been on the linee | which obtain in South Africa, where the players are the soundest of amateurs. But if there is to be the slightest doubt ac to the status of the men, then let there be honeet professionalism and Ho bones made about it. If there is to be I a colonial development, let the colonials I profit thereby, and let our clubs at Home j do what they can for the gaime in Engj land. They will find greater satisfaction I in testing their strength with the players ! i they tare reared asrainst the colonial ' i products than they coukl possibly do by j i pitting Anglo-Colonial .sides against Aus- ' I tralia and against New Zealand. For'

this reason we will welcome the institution of a Protective policy by the leagues of Australia and New Zealand. It may stop the supply of ready-made playere to our clubs, but it will teach us independence and t» look after our own young footballers. According to a Wellington report, a couple of players in an up-country town have transgressed the rules of professionalism in the most barefaced manner, but, as the governing body for the district seems disinclined to take up the matter, it is not unlikely that the New Zealand Rugby Union will 'be approached through a private channel.