OUR SQUEAKING WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 188, 9 August 1924, Page 11

OUR SQUEAKING WOMEN.

ENGLISH MANAGER'S CRITICISM. I LITTLE "BARRACKING" AT HOME, j The statement made by Mr. E. Osborne lin Christchurch that the crowds at j football matches in Xew Zealand wen: j worse than a bullfight crowd, and that ' I the squeaking of the fair sex who patI ronise footba.ll was terrible," was reter- ' red to a couple of keen football • ■•nthurij aits who have patronised the game in ! L'ngland and particularly Wigan. The reporter's aim was to pet au opinion from mpinbu's of the fair sex who had been'present at mavbes in England, but i not being able to got into touch with such a lady the reporter did the n->xt j best thing and interviewed a gentleman . ! who was in England la=t season and : attended all the mau-hes played by the . ; Wigan League team. I ' '"Mr. Osborne is quite right to a great extent, in what he say.-." remarked the gentleman interviewed. "I take it that by 'squeaking women' he refers to the barracking which the lariie;. indulge in. Well that is something you don't see in ! j Kngland. The ladies who patronise the ; i football there take the play more as a '.matter of fa-ct than <]o the New Zealand women. Certainly they are enthusiastic, but they do not get carried away by the play and shout all the time, and the job of the referee is a much better • one than out here. Xot that there is j anything against women getting excited. I They are just as much entitled to do so i as the men, but even in England the I I men do not let themselves go like they ■do here, and rarely would hooting be indulged in. They view the game in the same way that au audience would I a play at the theatre here, and there is I no applause till a movement, which may or may not end in a score is finished. Then the crowd would applaud by clap- . ping their hands. If by squeaking I Mr. Osborne means barracking he 13 undoubtedly right. }In says 'the Xew Zealand crowds are worse than those at a bull fight,' I don't know anything ; about bull fights. You see it is some-I thing new to the Englishmen to play in ' a match where the crowd is shouting itself hoarse throughout the game. The football follower at Home "takes his j , sport more seriously.' , "Don't you think we take ours seriously ?'' "Perhaps I should not have said 'seriously,' because the Xew Z-.-alanders are a bit too serious. What I meant i ;was that there was more, discipline ; about the crowd at a match in England." A second gentleman interviewed said that he knew the crowds in England.) and did not altogether hold with Mr! Osborne. If the Xew Zealand women were "squeakers" then Mr. Osborne was a champion "squealer," and every member of the team was running him close. The women at Home were just as enthusiastic aa they wore here, and in Soccer garner they "lost their heads." j "Lot. Mr. Osborne go dovrn to our own Victoria Park when the Thistle team is playing and see how some of his own -womenfolk squeak. I can't understand What, they say, and I come from ■ Home. And then he talks of wet grounds being against the English ; team. Why the weather in Wigan is ' the butt of all the jokes for the music j j hail comedians. Tt is ajways wet at; ! Wiean. and Mr. Osborne must know it. . Take it from mc, the poorest lot of sports in the Dominion to-day are the ! two managers and the 26 members of : the English League team."