Many miles of travel in soccer league

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31645, 3 April 1968, Page 13

Many miles of travel in soccer league

'THE most strenuous and comprehensive interclub sporting programme (in terms of miles to be travelled) undertaken in New Zealand, will begin on Saturday with the inauguration of the Southern League soccer competition.

Between this coming week-end and the end of August, the five Canterbury clubs in the league's first division will have travelled four times to Dunedin and once to Invercargill. The two sides in the second division will have one more journey than their first division counterparts: in addition to going four times to Dunedin and once to Invercargill, they will also have one trip to Timaru. The new combined South Canterbury club, Timaru City, virtually a representative side, will also be covering many hundreds of miles —two trips to Christchurch, four to Dunedin and one to Invercargill, during its second division campaign. The prospect for the two Invercargill clubs, Queen’s Park in the first division and Thistle in the second, is equally forbidding: for Queen’s Park, five trips to Christchurch and four to Dunedin: for Thistle, two to Christchurch, one to Timaru and four to Dunedin. And for one of the Canterbury clubs, the Southern League will not end its soccer tour of the South Island. The winner of the . local Chatham Cup competition will have to travel to either Nelson or Marlborough for the inter-zonal final.

The whole undertaking has had immense repercussions on clubs and players. Initially, clubs had to decide whether they could afford to enter the league, after totalling the expenses of entry fees, travelling and hotel costs they will have to bear. Some decided quickly, others only after most anxious investigations of the current club treasury. Probably the argument that swayed all seven, even

when the costs to be borne seemed insurmountable, was that they could not afford to stay out. They knew that non-entry into the league would mean being relegated to the lesser Canterbury competitions, to be followed by a mass exodus of their leading players to clubs playing in the Southern League. To all seven, this was the clinching argument. The players, too, have had their problems, and over-all, no less exacting than those of the clubs. They had to reconcile themselves to hours of travelling, week-

ends away from home (and to the married men, this was a family problem) and to a possible loss of income from jobs. Some clubs may be in a position to reimburse those who lose income; others are not in the same position. But no club will be able to recompense a player if he loses the possibility of advancement in his work because he will want to be away from work promptly on Friday evenings to travel to Dunedin to play soccer the next day. Or if he is not available on a Saturday morning when his

employer needs a volunteer. With these obstacles to be overcome, the r'esponse from clubs and players has been almost unbelievable. The Southern League committee was staggered by the response—an entry of 18 clubs, and two latecomers waiting on the sidelines if one of the originals had dropped out. The players, in fact, have welcomed the league’s formation with an enthusiam few had expected. And no less a response has been found in the Central League, based on Wellington, which also

starts on Saturday. The six clubs from Wellington, two from Palmerston North, and one each from Napier and Gisborne may not have ahead of them the same amount of travelling that confronts the Southern League clubs, but their problems are also formidable.

The Gisborne club, in fact, faces the greatest amount of travelling of all clubs in the three regional leagues—six trips of 330 miles each to Wellington, two of 240 miles each to Palmerston North and one of 130 miles to Napier.