THE SPECTATOR NUISANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 129, 3 June 1930, Page 6

THE SPECTATOR NUISANCE.

The disturbance occasioned by over-heated spectators during the final of the French Lawn Tennis Championship Singles is one of many pieces of. evidence recently forthcoming which indicate the difficulties to which athletes' are now subjected when playing before large public audiences. The present day devotion of the ! general public to such games as lawn tennis and golf is, of course,,a tribute to the games and the players, but, like the social privileges of Gilbert's Lord Chancellor, "it. has its inconvenient side." When people in thousands get so wildly excited as to lose their heads completely, and attempt to dictate to umpires and referees the conditions under which games shall be played, or when, as in the recent golf championships at Home, they encroach upon the field of play, oblivious of their own danger, till the competitors cannot swi-.g a club, the time has syrely come to put a rigid check on this superabundant enthusiasm. Miss Joyce Wethered and Mile. Suzanne Lenglen, the two greatest women players that golf and tennis have known, have both declared that they will not face the ordeal of public play again, and this is not the least loss that "the spectator nuisance" is likely to inflict upon public athletics if it is allowed to riot unchecked much longer.