Soccer American Countries Want N.Z. Tour

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29896, 9 August 1962, Page 6

Soccer American Countries Want N.Z. Tour

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 8. Prospects are bright for a soccer tour of New Zealand by a San Francisco team and for a tour of California and Central and South America by a national side from this country.

Mr S. J. Guppy, of Nelson, said this when he landed at Wellington airport after a three and a hal'-month. 33.000-mile tour of the United States and Latin American countries.

Mr Guppy is a member of the New Zealand Football Association council, one of the three South Island selectors and the president of the Nelson Football Association He said that the Californian soccer authorities were •‘extremely interested” in the project. They told him that New Zealand Rugby tours were now accepted and welcomed in the State, and they were keen to introduce sports fans to New Zealand soccer players, he said. Growing More Popular Mr Guppy added that playing standards in California were very good and the game was becoming popular in the United States. The football park in Los Angeles (formerly a baseball stadium' held 20,000 spectators, and in New York, international league games, in which

European club teams took part, attracted crowds of up to 12.000. However, it was in Central and South America that soccer was the religion that Rugby is in New Zealand. Mr Guppy said. Mr Guppy believed that against club sides in California and Central America. New Zealand would not be disgraced but would also learn a great deal. In addition to California, Costa Rica, Guatemala. El Salvador and Mexico were most interested in the prospect of a tour by a New Zealapd side. In these countries the emphasis was on club rather than representative football, arid it would probably be against' club teams that the tourists would play.