The Press Thursday, June 4, 1925. The League of Football.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18399, 4 June 1925, Page 8

The Press Thursday, June 4, 1925. The League of Football.

It is not at all likely that the footballers who met yesterday on Lancaster Park supposed that tLey had met for tho good of the world; and if they had supposed that they would at once have made it untrue. Yet it is one of the most hopeful signs of our not too cheerful times that the cult of football is spreading to the ends of the earth, and promising to become a valuable auxiliary to the League of Nations by promoting friendly relations between the peoples of Europe. As far back as 1890 a" premature group of Young Turks tried to establish the game in Constantinople, and met at the house of one of their moving spirits to translate the English rules into Turkish. Unluckily for them a Palace spy got wind of the meeting, and the football enthusiasts were deported as conspirators, tho rules being looked on as proclamations, the gay jerseys as uniforms, the football itself as a "top" or cannon-ball. About the same time the game was introduced into Portugal, but at one of the first matches the excitable Latin mob attacked the victorious English teaia, and the next game was played with the remarkable assistance of soldiers with fixedj bayonets. But times have changed since the '9o's, aiid one of the pleasanter byproducts of the Great War is an immense Continental increase in the vogue of the game. Rugby has come to stay in Prance, but Association is the popular form in the rest of Europe. In Franco, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Holland, the game was well established in pro-war days, but now it is played with a constantly accelerating swing and zest in almost'every part of Europe, oxcept apparently in Soviet Russia. A very interesting article in a recent issue of " The Times, " to which we owo our information, tells us that in Czecho-Slovakia football has become the most popular sport of the day, and that polysyllabic country runs tw;o associations, one to manage First League Competitions, and the other, which rejoices in the simple little name of Czechoslovensky Svaz Footbalovitch, to control all other matches. Prague can boast some hundred clubs, for the most part with English trainers; and the Czechs are said to have a natural aptitude for the game, though they sometimes play too willingly. Poland also is bitton by the new enthusiasm, and has an all' Jew club, whoso matches are watched by thousands without causing riots, and, more remarkable still, an all-German team which plays international matches in Polish colours. Rumania, Hungary and Austria all share in tho cult', Rumania sending teams all over Europe, even as far as Spain, whore "futbol" is threatening to eclipse bull-fighting. Combination is not the strong point of the Spanish players, who aro said to be individualists to a man. Austria is another country that sends its teams far afield, and though the first,- Viennese football club was established forty years ago, it is only since tho war that Association has become the leading sport of the country, which now- supports no fewer than 672 clubs. And just as in Poland this great sport gives the Jews a muchneeded chance, so in Austria it promotes friendly rivalry with the new States, emancipated in the war, and acts also as a unifying force in the Kingdom of the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. It seems like stories from tho world of spirits to read of football teams coming to Belgrade from such improbable places as Zagreb, Lubliana and Spalato. And it is certainly-aston-ishing to' hear of a representative Oxford team undergoing two defeats at the feet of the mon of Zagreb. In the Baltic States it is the same tale. There the game was long ago introduced by members and employees of British commercial firms, but there has boen immense progress since the war, and each State has now its own League and follows with close attention the fortunes of the game in Britain. This is all to the good. There is no better social unifier, and nothing more likely to promote international goodwill, than a common interest in a wholesomo game played in a sporting spirit. And it is good to know that even in the Portuguese game that led to the riot the beaten team gamely took the part of the victorious English side against the attacking mob.