WITH OUR SECOND BEST.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 181, 31 July 1915, Page 9

WITH OUR SECOND BEST.

TO CAXHY ON THE GAMES. EFFECT nr THE WAR on SPORT. To-day in i.x>tbal! circle* the talk is of the Cup finals—"The Day" among the' particular footballers concerned. A year ago. when Cup finals were bein; played. '•The Day." the all-absorbing topic among footballers and all others relate.l to the declaration of war between Britain and Germany. People foregathered by the sheer impulse of custom at the game* they ordinarily pa.troni.-cd or played, hut the shock and thrill of the war declaration occupied their miiuN and burdened their talk. We have now had twelve months of the preate.,t war of the world, and stubborn fighting, steady recruiting, organising, and reorsanisinp to build up the bis<*est flghtforce Britain has ever known; of financing to i'i\e the Chancellor of the Exchequer a war fund beyond al! precedent : of self-taxation to help the sick and the wounded and the homeless; and j round come the football Cup finals again. Somehow, it seems a subject for philosophical rcllectioii on British conservatism and biilldo;; tenacity of on custom and tradition: or. perhaps, a theme | for Treitwhke like treatise ipoet helium) ! on "th<' biological nerew«'ty of rude! games tor the Uriti-h. with explanations j of how th<*v happened to beat v- though ; having no kiiltur." But this preamble is aimed at leading up to a review o: the effect of the past j year* war on sport locally. The tOiock | of the declaration i> gone, ami we have , settled down to jrrim realisation of the j sickening brutality of war. and iv hitter! toll on the men. resources, and energies ' of the Empire. Sport is .i peace-time energy that in closely related to war in the respect that the player* of the one and warriors of th? other compre-e the healthy active male* orf the <-onimunity between the a»es of twenty and forty, *o that it forms an exrellent. war barometer. The m.uiy other agencies equally important with the man at the front in the winning of a war are not co public, and ronsetruently do not afford the same ready basis for sizing up the situation. A mere glance round the playing grounds on a Saturday shows that though the game» iia\e nin thrir usual pimut. and we axe still having football finals as in 1914. the effect of the war is strongly marked ail round. In Rome cases it has swept away nearly the whole of particular playing into the tor tes of the fighting, as in the notai>le cases of the I'nivcrsity Rugby senior J foothall team and the" College Rifles I second (trade fifteen of last year, while ! there is not a club playing Rugby, I League, and Association football or I hockey that has not contributed a large i percentage of it*, last year's players to the nrina-line. And. with the recruitinji. e:u-h week ha» its tale of fresh vacancies in the teams. Thej-e vacancies hail been tilled by the promotion of younjrer player*, and. to a lesser extent, I by some pJayers with domestic re-ponsi j bilities. who would ordinarily have re , linquiohed the panic for the garden, be- ! ins kept in the field, while yet a few I others who had comparatively recently i retired to the family circle have once ayiin donned the football and hockey ! jerwy. from the dual consideration of i helping their clubs and of keeping fit in [ view of the possibility of ;i call to the I ranks. Of i-ourse. this call on the junior I reserves, which must of necessity stop I dead at the secondary schools, has had i the effect of thinninp out the junior . rank*, and there are many less junior ' teams than there were la-st year. j Vet another aspect. Winter games I must of necessity be cjuick in action to I keep up the temperature, and they incline naturally to the spectacular. Hence I the onlooker is a factor as well as the , player: it is on the onlooker that the I management of the several sports deI pends that the *port may be financed. j improved, and propagated. The player plays and tlw spectator pays. But with ; the cream of the athlete.-, gone, and 1 understudies, many of them promoted prematurely by circumstances, in their places, the standard of play falls, the game is less interesting and lees excitI injr. It loses its firip on the spectator I 1 and he ceases to be a spectator and doe? I not [uiy. In any case, with work iin certain, living dear, and extra calls or ; hi- pocket, he would have h:ul to eul : : down expenditure on the Saturday i^am* .' a bit: now he does it with leee pejrret So the large crowds of other years at , i matches have become much eniallci gatherings of enthusiasts, and the con trolling bodies with private ground: ! (and a mortgage I arc well satisfied t< find the games attract attendances thai will pay expenses and leave something ; over for the interest. Of course, garnet on publii reserves, where charges can 1« made only on a limited number of occa i sions, arc not at this disadvantage t< ' the same extent. Free games are bourn to attract the foot-looee promenador ol Saturday, and it may even be that thesi i free games should prove a profitable ad i vertisement as a preliminary to spe.-ia j occasion* when a charge is made. Still I generally speaking, public patronage o ; Saturday sports has decreased this win • ter. for' the reason of the double de r crease —in the value of the show in par • ticular. and the value of the sixpence it general. In the summer game—cricket, tennis i aquatics, etc—the spectator is anahnosi r! negligible quantity, for the reason thai I 1 nearly everybody under forty pla« ■ i something in the summer. The pUiyers t i that have gone from these games to th< <| war are many. '- fact, pretty well th« . 1 same as those m, jed from the tootbal. . and hockey rente, tor most ol their 1 I wore oarsmen, swimmers, cricketers. o t 1 tenni- players in the summer, and d.s- ! ported themselves at football or hockey I in the winter The summer pa^.iniPS ilnoubl? .Ticket, lost much of their xm! /list season a* tliw player? gradually fell into the recruiting ranks, -and the . coaina »e**on will have to be faced vnti

fewer players than has been the case for many years. In addition to the direct war losses to clubs, there are bound to be defections also on the part of onetime members affected now by the stunting of the sixpence, lor summer games I are much more expensive luxuries for the player than the May-September pastimes. Still, the games are certain to go on, for, though the war pressure has depressed the fiport barometer to , "change,' , the glass would needs fall very much lower to indicate that the ap- : storm is fio affrighting as to ] drive every remaining Drake among us i from his game, of bowls.