The World of Sport

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 248, 18 October 1924, Page 37 (Supplement)

The World of Sport

S DOINGS ON TRACK AND YIELD. A if &

(From Our Own Correspondents.) LONDON, September 1. CHANGES IN FOOTBALL LAW. Association football begins this weekend, and all the eighty-eight clubs forming the four sections of the League will commence the struggle for points. The Rugby game, whose amateur players have not yet fini-shed with cricket, defer their opening for another mouth. The South African touriwts have arrived, and arc busy practising on a London ground. Their programme is not a very ambitious one, being con lined almost entirely to amateur opponents, but it is probable that even in this grade of football they will be highly tested. A few alterations have beeu made in the rules, luit they will not affect the game fo any marked extent. This season it will be possible to score a goal direct from a corner kick. Hitherto it has been necessary for it to touch a second player before a goal could be counted. The chief virtue of this alteration is that it will simplify the rule. It is unlikely, however, U'jat it will lead to more goals being scor.eji, inasmuch as a ball which is place%:£u' close to goal is easily dealt with by the goalkeeper, who tan use his hands." The other changes arc mainly instructions to referees. For instance, it is laid down that a player who is in an offside position inu-st jet be penalised unless he interferes the play. Again, the game is not to be 6topped in the eveut of a slight accident , to a man until the ball has gone out of play. Referees may have difficulty on the spur of the moment in deciding the difference between a slight hurt and a real injury, but, provided this is possible, a distinction should bo made. The object of the rule is to prevent shamming. Occasionally men have collapsed when their side is in danger of losing a goal, and they have not seemed to be really hurt. Another instruction is that, whilst a referee should explain to t. player any decision, the latter must not, either by word or action, show dissent from it. A breach of this instruction is to be treated as ungentlemanly conduct, and it will entail the ordering off of the man in question. ' It is not likely that appeals against referees' decisions be stopped, but in future they ought be lodged in a proper manner. C3ICKET : YORKSHIRE DEFEATED. Yorkshire have been beaten for the third time this season, but it is one of the anomalies of the championship that they have gone to the top in front of Middlesex. This change in the position of the clubs is due to the fact that Middlesex have also been defeated Ji a remarkable match by Gloucestershire. Yorkshire failed nt the Oval before Surrey, and it is true to say that they ■were beaten before ever a ball was bowled. Geoffrey Wilson, the Yorkshire captain, won the toss, and he took the grave risk of sending his opponents in to bat. He gambled on the weather. The pitch was wot, and, if slow, likely to give his bowlers some assistance, and the Oval turf has such wonderful recuperative properties that he came to the conclusion that it would play better at the end than at the beginning of the match. In the first place, Surrey scored 209 runs, Sandham making 72, and these ■were more than they were expected to obtain. On the second day, when Yorkshire went in, the wicket was trickier than ever, and they were all out for 100. The struggle from this point was even, but Surrey retained their advantage, t. Inning by 109 runs, which was exactly the lead they obtained on the first innings. The match between Middlesex and Gloucestershire was remarkable lor a. bowling performance by Parker, who altogether took 14 wickets for 131 runs. The game opened sensationally, Gloucestershire being dismissed for the meagre total of 30. Haig, the Middlesex liowler, was almost unplayable, and he (laimed six victims for 11 runs. Having Hot their opponents out so cheaply, it seemed easy for' Middlesex to win, and practically settle the championship. Parker not only did the hat rick, but, as has been stated, got seven men out for 30. Thus Middlesex were only 44 ahead on the first innings. Then Gloucestershire rallied in a remarkable way, Hammond playing a superb not-out innings of 174, and when the score was 294 for nine wickets they declared. Middlesex failed by 61 to secure the runs needed to win. Parker again did the hat trick. The Gloucestershire slow bowler has performed this feat five times during his career, and he accomplished it earlier in this season against Surrey, So far as the championship is concerned, the question is: Why should Middlesex suffer a severer penalty for defeat than Yorkshire? This is the grotesque sort of thing which happens when you try appraisement h> cricket by decimal fractions. REVIEW OF THE LAWN TENNIS SEASON. The championships at Wimbledon form the climax to the English lawn tennis season. Thus when only half the season is completed interest declined. Wuring the last month or so there have been countless tournaments all over the country, but the play has been largely of a holiday description. Without much doubt the most successful English player has been J. B. Gilbert, who has won more matches than he was expected to lose, and lost fewer than he was relied upon to win. than any other of his countrymen. This rather negative virtue, which is in accordance with the main characteristics of his game, is a fair reflex of the standard of English play thii season. We cannot help feeling that the "safety first" methods of our players might "be improved by a little more dash and a little less caution, even if fewer matches were won by its adoption. A. R. F. Kingscote comes second, and would probably not be iD that position if he could have got into practice *oonor and found his game, which was very noat. and effective, and merely lacked that extra punch in the jrtjrnkftß thai; comes with, good, practice

and wins matches when confidently played. Kingseote never loses a raateh that by the book lie should win, but he also seldom wins a match that he might have won if his opponent could have been pushed a little further. Then J. D. P. Wheatley, who represented the British Isles in some of the Davis Cup matches, and won the Hard Court Doubles Championship of England with F. L. Rieely, comes next. He is young, fit, and apparently very keen, yet his play this year in singles must on the whole be accounted disappointing. After Wheatley comes Max Woosnam. He played very well in the Davis Cup d'jtbles match against France. His play, however, is a good example of the English Wjvy of rather unprepared method alliiJrHvith a line spirit. RiXycett has this year lost much of his prestige in all departments of the game. In singles, mixed doubles, and doubles he is undoubtedly less powerful than in previous years. Our men have the ideal temperament. They never give up, do not lose their head.s in emergencies, but appear to fa.il in a mechanical sense. In other worde, their strokes, and also their tactic.,, are so poor that they are outclassed by the brilliant American or Continental players. They cannot live against the brilliant strokes of an, Alonso, the fierce hitting of a Hunter, or the deft volleys of a Vincent Richards), whose respective methods, developed to the utmost of their possessors' imagination and technical skill, seem to have out-distanced anything that the far less clever play of our own players has been able to produce. If our men have failed us this year we can certainly point to the play of our ladies as a redeeming feature of the season. At Wimbledon, at any rate, we have supplied the lady champion, Miss Kitty McKane, and the mixed doubles champions. BBfr MEN WITH BIGGER NOTIONS. Mr. Eugene Corri, the famous boxing referee writes:— "The longer I live the more difficult do I find it to understand the attitude and the mentality of all too many of our boxers of the heavier class. They not only remain sublimely ignorant of their limitations, but steadfastly refuse to suppose that it is not possible for them to live what time they spend most of their days in idle prattle. "Daily assurances come to mc that, if they could only get work, how happy they would be; and, when I reply that there is employment in plenty, they invariably answer; Tea, but not at our price.' It is as clear as daylight that the very best of our big fellows — and the confession has to be made that the very best of them are no great shakes —have either to fear the possibility of going on the dole, or shed for ever their exalted ideas of what is fair and proper and reasonable wages. "Without mentioning names, one of our heavy-weights, with but small prospect of getting a job here, scared a French promoter almost to the point of death when stating his price to appear in Paris; and it required no end of argument to convince him that, if he waited for an engagement at home, the probability is that ho would not get more than £5 a round. From what I know, the Continental ring could be exploitedewith much more profit than it has been so far; the trouble is that men shout too high when asked to name their fee, believing, I suppose, that outside of England the promoter is a pigeon splendidly ripe for plucking. "But what are we to make of Frank Goddard ? When it was too late, he let it be known that he was favourably disposed towards an offer of a £1000 purse for a fight with Bloomfield; his earliest idea was that such a price was ridiculously inadequate, for the reason that technically, at any rate, he is British heavy-weight champion. It is necessary for their own sake to say that these exponents were never in a position to pick and choose; that hitherto they have been very generously paid, and for quite a while there has been but a very small public for most of them. Goddard has either got to fight when the opportunity is offered, or he may be sure that the business of fighting will not seek after him. It is possible, if not probable, that, if Goddard had stage managed things with something like discretion when he first butted in, instead of supposing that an odd victory or so meant more than it did, he would bo in a vastly different position than he is to-day. For quite a time our Trig" men will be decidedly fortunate if they make as much as £50 out of a contest. "Jack Bloomfield, who is now honeymooning, says that he can do the cruiser weight. If he can, there is Tom Berry all ready for him, and if he developed a reasonable economic frame of mind, he would find that he may go up and down the country with considerable help to himself, and also perhaps to the game. There are any number of possibilities for Bloomfield in the way of work; and he can take it from mc that if he sets out on the right track, he will have the people with him. Since Tom Berry is in the field, and Bloomfield feels that he would do well to have a shot at the light-heavy-weight belt, then Berry it must be. "Then there is Tom Heeney, the New Zealander, in whom Mr. Bernard Mortimer is interested, crying aloud for a fight. Also Jack Stanley, Phil Scott, and Jack Reddick, not to mention our former cruiser champion, Harry Reeve. The heavy-weight who is going to capture the public is the one who takes the earliest opportunity of clearing the decks. "Tom Gibbons, before he left London, offered as an explanation of why we have got into a rut—the laziness of our boxers. I would not say that they are lazy, but they do lack imagination— the imagination that will convince them that hanging around -waiting for some big sugary plum to fall mi]gt produce

ineptitude. Honestly, Ido not know how some fighters who rate themselves above the ordinary make ends meet, so fastidious are they in their ideas of what is a suitable engagement. "My masters, the handwriting is on the wall for everyone of you to read; it is that the scrapper must scrap; and that the scrapper who is not finnicky when offered employment ie the man who will make headway. If it were possible I would round up each and everyone of the supposedly top notchers, and take them to the different boxing halls whose patrons are quick to spot a fighter and who insist upon fighting with blood and iron in it. You aristocrats of the profession, take to the Ring, Blackfriars, the Stadium at Liverpool, to Leeds, to Manchester, to Newcastle, to Plymouth, make a tour of the countryside, and, if you can do your fighting better than some of the 'unknowns,' I shall be the first to consrratulate you and declare that we are in for the greatest boxing boom ever, " (C.vif.rued on Page 3.)