Inter-School Athletics

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28869, 14 April 1959, Page 3

Inter-School Athletics

Sir, —I think your leading article, about the inter-school sports and the abandonment of the points system was a very sensible one. The advertisement on the same subject on the back page was both pertinent and amusing. However, it is unfair to castigate the sports masters’ committee for this. This committee decided the previous year against such action but was directed later by the headmasters (with two dissenting) to abandon points in 1959. If these facts are correct, and I have heard them openly stated in conversation, then the sports masters’ committee should be cleared of the blame. —Yours, etc., D. J. R. COOKE. April 11, 1959. [This letter was referred to a headmaster of a Christchurch secondary school, who said:

“Headmasters must take responsibility for matters concerning their schools.”]

Sir,—The caustic reply of Mr Dugdale gave no real reasons for his attitude, and told us nothing except his personal habits. His method of “clearing the air” consisted of forbidding “partisan critics” to thow up their sweaty nightcaps—a method which, though witty, is logically ineffective in' justifying any of the alleged and as yet undenied selfish motives of the smaller schools. In his statement that there is “no compulsion” on the schools to provide a combined athletic meeting, his attitude is clear: “The schools run the sports, and as we smaller schools form the majority, we are able to dictate our wishes, and consequently any critics which declare that these wishes are to the detriment of the meeting are automatically ‘ill-natured' and ‘impertinent.’ ” No logical reason has yet been produced.— Yours, etc., FODIOR. April 13, 1959.

Sir, —After reading Mr Dugdale’s letter, one must feel some gratification that the parents of competing athletes —or rather, those taking part in the demonstrations —are to be admitted to the park. It is, he says, purely a domestic affair to which the public are invited as guests. How genteel it all sounds. To be consistent, Mr Dugdale would press for the elimination of the competitive element in all other sports played at the schools. Bui would he? Some of the better citizenry have been guilty of throwing up their sweaty nightcaps at school Rugby games. Does it really harm a boy to compete, as best he can, for his school team “Partisanship and tension” are inevitable among schoolboys, and are, indeed, the background to all the character-building school sports are supposed to provide. Except athletics, suddenly —Yours, etc., ALSO RAN. April 13, 1959.