School Match TV Ban Attacked

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 1

School Match TV Ban Attacked

The decision of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union not to allow a live telecast of the annual match between Christ’s College and Christchurch Boys’ High School “was an arrogant display of power” by the union, said Professor H. J. Hopkins at yesterday’s meeting of the high school board of governors.

He said that the board had been ignored in the matter. The use of the school grounds remained the concern of the board and no doubt the same

applied to the Christ’s College board of governors. Professor Hopkins said that he did not think decisions affecting the boys at school or at the college when they met at sports meetings were the concern of anyone but the boards concerned. “Both the N.Z.B.C. and the Rugby Union seem to have forgotten this,” he said. Mr C. H. McPhail questioned what it was that Professor Hopkins was interested in—the boys or the spectators. He said that the policy

was laid down. “What is all the fuss about?”

He said that the Rugby Union could provide better

accommodation for the game to be seen and far better conditions than those at present, but it was a tradition of the schools involved to play the annual-game on their own grounds. Mr K. A. Gough said that the matter should be reduced to proper proportion. It was first and foremost a match between two schools and the boys should not be surrounded by such publicity.

“They are schoolboys playing a game in the spirit of friendly competition. They are not there for thb spectators," he said.