NO CLOSE OF PLAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 122, 26 May 1939, Page 8

NO CLOSE OF PLAY.

| The British National Fitness Council seems intent on turning night into day in the interests of sport. The council has made a long and close investigation of the possibility of illuminating playing fields so that sunset need not mean close of play. Artificial light is already used for certain spectacles which are loosely called sports. Why should it not be used for the games which Tom, Dick and Harry would delight to play after working hours? The ans'wer elicited by the National Fitness Council's inquiry is that it can be so used and at a surprisingly low cost. Both gas and electricity have been considered, and the outlay on the initial equipment required has been found to be a good deal les s than might have been supposed. A school playground, for example, has been furnished with permanent equipment for floodlighting by electricity at a cost of about £00. Larger playgrounds required an outlay of £75 or £100. When one considers how greatly the usefulness of playgrounds could be extended if floodlighting made them available on winter evenings, this expenditure appears far from extravagant. The figures relating to illumination by gas are no less encouraging. Presuming a gas main is handy, a football field can be adequately floodlit by an installation costing £2:10. and the consumption of gas (at 9d a therm) would work out at about a shilling an hour. On the score of health there is much to be said in favour of extending in this way the opportunities for games. One possible snag is the provision of a surface more durab'e than mere turf, which, in the winter months, would never stand the wear and tear of nightly matches.