DOUBTS ON HOLDING OF NATIONAL LEAGUE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 7

DOUBTS ON HOLDING OF NATIONAL LEAGUE

The Canterbury Football Association. through its chairman (Mr T. Smith), will ask the New Zealand Council to give a direction on the proposed national league. Mr Smith will attend a meeting in Wellington on Saturday and will advise delegates that C anterbury would prefer the league to be held on a provincial basis. However, Mr Smith was given the right to accept a compromise if necessary should the meeting reach a deadlock. Members of the association last evening agreed that the league would run at a loss originally because of the lack of finance available and poor attendances throughout the country. Mr R Storer suggested that the only way successfully to hold a national league would be to play the games out of season. The Western elub questioned a statement made bv the referees’ delegate <Mr T. C. Gotter meyer). at a recent meeting of the association. The letter from the club secretary (Mr J. Thomson) asked the association to pass its letter on to the Referees’ Asociation to find whether Mr Gottermeyer’s statement was his own

opinion or that of the association. The letter objected to Mr Gottermeyer saying that: “Messrs Cullen and Anderson <the line umpires), had stated it was easier to control a game tn Otago and Auckland than it was in Canterbury. Also Mr Armstrong (the referee), of Wellington. had said that in the South Island Chatham Cup final Western had questioned his decisions more often than St. Kilda. The letter said that the club took exception to the clur cast on Canerbury players in general and Western players in particular. “We feel this is Mr Gottermeyer’s personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of the Referees’ Asociation,” said the letter. Western asked the association to take the matter up with the Referees’ Association and obtain its observations. On Mr Gottermeyer’s motion Westerns request was approved. Mr Gottermeyer reported the death of Mr E. Davey, who had been secretary of the Referees’ Association four times, between 1916 and 1935. He had also been a New Zealand badge holder