Hockey AUSTRALIA INVITED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29767, 9 March 1962, Page 15

Hockey AUSTRALIA INVITED

N.Z. Tour Next Year The Australian Hockey Association is to be invited to send a team to tour New Zealand in June and July next year. The management committee of the New Zealand Hockey Association made this decision last night. The New Zealand body originally invited the Australians to tour this year, but the Australian association intimated that 1963 would suit it better. A motion that the initial invitation should stand was put before the meeting last night and defeated by four votes to three. Messrs I. Smith and M. R. Good both favoured a “quiet” season this year, and the chairman (Mr A. D. Holland! agreed that such a move would be advantageous to local administrators, after the heavy tasks they had had to bear since before the 1960 Olympic Games. The secretary (Mr E. S. Hobson) said a tour of New Zealand by an Indian side in 1963 was a definite possibility and it was also possible that Pakistan would consider visiting New Zealand in 1964, before participating in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. If tours by Australian and Indian teams next year were spaced well apart they should not present too great a hurdle, now that billeting of Australian side* had been accepted, said Mr Holland. A report from the manager (Mr Hobson) on the New Zealand team’s Far East tour was to hand, but a report from the coach (Mr B. A. Turner, of Palmerston North) was still awaited. Mr Holland reported. On his suggestion it was decided to defer the matter to the next meeting of the committee. Advice was received from the international hockey umpires’ body that Mr H. D. Kelly, of Picton, had been raised to the status of international umpire. He is the first New Zealander to be so honoured since World War II and only the fourth from this country since hockey started.