SHOCK SOCCER DECISION

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 17

SHOCK SOCCER DECISION

Canterbury soccer officials suffered a shock yesterday when they received a letter from the New Zealand Football Association announcing that the Rothmans provincial tournament, due to be played next month, had been abandoned.

Canterbury had arranged its fixtures so that September 14 and 21 were left clear for the South Island series against Otago.

Auckland and Wellington were to play the North Island series, the winners to meet in the final in the South Island on September 28. After suffering financial losses on the Cardiff City match at the Basin Reserve, Wellington withdrew from the tournament. The N.Z.F.A. then asked Manawatu, which has beaten Wellington in tbe last three matches between the provinces, to come in as substitute, but Manawatu has refused. AUCKLAND OUT

The letter received yesterday from the N.Z.F.A. to the Canterbury association announced that Auckland had also withdrawn. It is understood that Manawatu and Auckland decided they could not compete because their clubs would be involved in eatch-up matches in the central and northern leagues, respectively. To ensure that the last three Saturdays in September would be free for the provincial series, Canterbury had arranged to play the O’Briens sponsored knock-out tournament on Wednesday evening and had played its catch-up matches in the southern league at mid-week and on Sundays.

“The position could now be, unless swift changes are made, that we will be playing the rest of our football in the mid-week and have nothing for the week-ends,” the chairman of the Canter-

bury match committee (Mr R. Storer) said yesterday.

“This is a ludicrous situation. What are the New Zealand Football Association trying to do to us? Make us so fed up with the game that we drop out? “It is a criminal decision. It has played havoc with our fixtures. It makes our work a complete waste of time and some of us have more important matters to look after, even if others haven’t.” The chairman of the association (Mr T. C. Gottermeyer) described the N.Z.F.A. announcement as “a shock to us all.” However, he thought that Auckland must have “a pretty valid reason for with-

drawing" and that criticism should be tempered until the full facts were known. “However, I shall want to know whether we could have been told of the decision earlier,” he added. The minutes of the last N.Z.F.A. executive committee meeting, held on August 26, in which the announcement was made, and a covering letter from the secretary of the N.Z.F.A. (Mr T. Sanders) arrived in the same post yesterday. “If we had been informed of the decision by telegram immediately after the executive meeting we would have had a week longer to re-arrange our own fixtures,”

the Canterbury secretary (Mr K. Roberts) said yesterday. TALKS WITH OTAGO Discussions have already been held with Otago officials in the hope of playing the two matches, in Dunedin on September 14 and Christchurch the next week for the Jones Cup, the annual competition between the two provinces. Otago officials will discuss the matter at their next meeting. The Rothmans tournament is the second major series abandoned by the N.Z.F.A. this season. The first was the Merdeka tournament in Malaysia. There is still a possibility that New Zealand will also withdraw from the World Cup, depending on talks the N.Z.F.A. will have with officials of the international federation in Mexico City next month. HOPES DASHED

Canterbury had high hopes of beating Otago and meeting Auckland on September 28 at English Park in a grand final to the season. Canterbury has travelled to Auckland twice in the last three years. “Even if Otago agrees to continue the provincial matches, there will be no major attraction for English Park on the final Saturday. “Now we may have to arrange a New Zealand-born versus Overseas-born game," Mr Storer said. “All our plans have been swept overboard.”