Successful Coach

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28660, 9 August 1958, Page 5

Successful Coach

Coach of the Seatoun team, which will - meet -■ Christchurch City in the final Of the Chatham 'Cup contest .today, is Mr R. S. Srhith. A sound thinker, with the necessary drive, he was the man behind Seatoun’s brilliant win last season. - Until this, season, he has coached five teams to the finals and had three wins, a draw, and a Joss.

Mr Smith attended Christchurch Technical. College and in 1x36, when only 18, he played senior football for Technical. In 1937, he captained the side when it won itsNSrst Canterbury Football Association championship. Because his father, Mr G. Smith, was founder, he joined the Western club in 1938 and played in the 1939 Chatham Cup final, which was lost to. Waterside. In 1937, he represented Canterbury against an English side and con- 1 tinued to play inside right for the province until 1940. Injury Having received a le» injury in World War 11, he became interested in the administration of soccer. He was elected deputychairman of the Canterbury Football Association, a position he held until he moved to Wellington in 1956. Here he joined up with Seatoun, again because of a family connexion—his brother, J. K. Smith, a member of the N.Z.F.A., was club president. He is now 'the Canterbury representative on the New Zealand Football Association and is a member of the tours and finance committee and the coaching committee. As selector-coach, he led Western to its second Chatham Cup win in 1945. In 1952, he took Western to another final to draw-one-all, with North Shore, Auckland. In 1954 Western lost 0-1 to Onehunga in the final, but Mr Smith coached Western to a 6-2 win over Eastern- Suburbs in. the 1958 final.