“State Aid For Sport To Halt Delinquency”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29330, 8 October 1960, Page 14

“State Aid For Sport To Halt Delinquency”

(New Zealand Press Association)

■ AUCKLAND, October 7. The Government could strike a decisive blow against delinquency if it followed the example of every other nation in the world and gave State aid to the promotion of sport, an Auckland athletic coach, Mr A. L. Lydlard said today. “I challenge anyone to look round any athletic or swimming club and’find a delinquent,” Mr Lydiard said. “The rest of the world’s governments have long ago recognised that sport builds clean minds, clean bodies and healthy citizenship—and it’s time New Zealand followed suit.” New Zealand did not have one sports stadium or building provided by the State, yet it had virtually wasted millions on compulsory military training for a net reward of little more than a few obsolete trucks, Mr Lydiard said. If even half that money had been spent on physical training or the promotion of sport, it would have been returned twofold to the nation already in the form of physically and mentally fit youth. Mr Lydiard said every New Zealand city should have a sports centre to meet its needs. “Our amateur sports bodies are not big enough to do these things themselves, yet everyone connected With them knows they cannot fully function until they have the facilities,” said Mr Lydiard. .Position in Germany State backing lay behind the astounding revival in Germany’s sport, he continued. The state not only sent a big team to the Rome Olympic Games, it also paid the full expenses of several hundred German youths as spectators. "Their massed, organised cheering was one of the features of the Games but. more significantly, they returned to their country imbued with sport. “Many will become the champions of the future because their country, is behind them. “Contrast that with the situation in New Zealand where the voluntary organisers of amateur sport go cap-in-hand merely to get the few pounds needed to survive. “Our public has never let us down, but can we go on asking them for eyer to buy tickets in our raffles and give donations to our appeals? “Can our amateur coaches go on giving an essential spare-time service to our youth, when most of their spare time is occupied in scheming ways to raise money to

keep a gymnasium or track or clubhouse in reasonable order?” “Our delinquents are delinquents because there is nothing else to occupy their minds. Initially, they are the same as our top athletes in spirit and in fitness—but they, go the wrong way because the scope to go the right way is too limited by an unhelpful State. “It is a sad reflection on the Government’s attitude when a struggling sport has to pay £93 -duty to bring a £46 trampoline into Auckland for its gymnasts—and then struggle for three years to get the duty refunded.” “The Government could take its first step by freeing sports equipment of all these crippling charges. “I know bodgies, drifters and delinquents who have answered the challenge of" sport. “Two or three weeks in a club and you would never recognise them. Their minds are occupied with something worthwhile—the personal challenge to the better.” Mr Lydiard said that reform need not start with borstal nor should it necessarily* start with education and religion. “Begin with sport. Sponsored and financed with State co-opera-tion, and your delinquents will wind up in education and religion of - their own accord. . “Clean the body, and the mind will clean itself,” he said.