Test match boozing: display of N.Z.’s primary drug abuse

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32663, 20 July 1971, Page 16

Test match boozing: display of N.Z.’s primary drug abuse

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the Rev. P. D. RAMSAY)

i We love our Rugby, ’and no top game lingers so pleasantly in memory as the last. The Lancaster Park test crowd waited long hours, then cheered and sang its way through one hour and a half—with good reason. Apart from one brief scuffle the bad sportsmanship was played off the field, principally on the embankment. A considerable proportion of those in the poorer class ticketless crush-up made the football incidental. The big thing was boozeroo! At a time when politicians get anxious about hypodermic syringes and introduce legislation to prevent consorting with known drug addicts; and medical researchers suddenly find funds for investigation of marijuana that were never available for alcohol a congregation of 57,500 was treated to an open display of our primary drug abuse. On the way to the ground many spectators commenced their priming-up ritual. After the game, for long hours into the morning the test match became a grand excuse for excessive grogging-up. But my concern is with crowd behaviour at the game itself and the way alcohol has wedged its way into our football pleasures. As with any sport it touches, it takes the shine off our performance—playing or watching. There are aspects of this drug-tak-ing that go beyond reason, comfort and propriety. INo common sense

For a person at all knowledgeable on biological functions it would seem common sense, when one is deprived by circumstance of any toilet facilities for a few hours, to go easy on liquid intake.

Not these young fellows, out for a day’s “fun.” Distasteful as it now seems in retrospect, any number of spectators on the terraces will tell you that these excessive drinkers (I saw no lemonade) had two common approaches ,to the discomfort of a full bladder. The bottle or beer can was refilled, or the urine flowed down the slopes without the complication of this containerisation. It may have been my bad luck to be standing beside a befuddled ceiebrator who dropped the bottle in the act, with a result that my sports trousers are now at the dry cleaners. Lest the reader feels that I should choose my friends carefully, and avoid the “rougher” element I must point out that my so-so-close companions, with whom I shared some hearty and inoffensive fun and good humour, were by style of speech and colour of scarves supporters of a nearby university.

In one vagrant thought of my taxes assisting increased bursaries, I calculated the expense of the drinking interlude and the cost of the evening to come, planned loudly in every detail. A very slight degree of comfort came from the calculation that $9 a person, Saturday after Saturday, couldn’t possible come from the public purse. The girls in the party were more abstemious than the boys, a point in their favour as to the appropriateness of imbibing at that time. Could there be less favourable circumstances for pleasant drinking? Not that the girls always passed the bottle by. One named the hotel where she and her companion started at 9 in the morning and never did get to see the Canterbury-Lions game.

The sum of the episode is a disturbing question: what will be the end result in, say, twenty years if this attitude towards and performance with alcohol is maintained? Our current alcoholism incidence (about which the community does precious little but under-caipet sweeping) will be the veriest trickle compared with the flood of addiction to come. On what basis do I make this gloomy prediction? The evidence of my eyes. The on-the-grounds drinkers were young people, an estimated 17 to 22 years. They have grown up in the period of our boasting of “enlightened” liquor laws and our “.civilised” drinking attitudes. It would be the bold or the blind who could claim that no hotel after the game reverted to stand-up, “swill” conditions. Or the “over-20s” only. Intensity is the mark of youth and they certainly carry this vigour into their sporting and capping week thirsts. Another attitude to be examined after the Lancaster Park test should be the presumption that everyone has jumped on the beer waggon. In the crush I had no hope of raising an arm to scratch my ear or blow my nose. This temporary inconvenience was a small price to pay for the footballing pleasures to come.

Involuntary drink My companions, stronger more resourceful, were not under the same handicap. Upheld by the crowd, swaying when they swayed, and supported at times at a grotesque angle, I was involuntarily refreshed. “I like the look of you. Have a drink with me.” said my closepressed neighbour. And the

gin was poured down my throat. Some of my friends who have been trying to get me to drink for years will herald this baptism with joy. Others will stand aghast with much the same abhorrence as a parent feels whose daughter loses her virginity before the culture says she should. Others again will be aroused to curiosity, wondering if in his captivity the person enjoyed his taste of liquor. With tactful reticence we take the incident no further—except to observe the consistent pattern with drug abuse: peer group pressure. “I want to drink. Therefore you must, to make me feel at ease.”

Just as strongly as others with needle or pill, the experimenter challenges the initiate: “Are you scared to try? Don’t you want to know what it’s like? Come on, as a mark of friendship. This little bit will do you no harm.” The only difference is that huge sums of money have been spent by advertisers making alcohol and cigarettes an accompaniment of gracious and acceptable and normal living. Social attitudes Social attitudes do much to adapt the law, turn Nelson’s eye, or bring it into disrespect. If we had not been in a carnival mood the throwers of empty beer cansi from the top of embankment on to the queues below would be charged with assault. Some foul language in mixed company was condoned if not enjoyed; and the casting of offensive matter at any other time and place would receive drastic attention from the law. Police "played it cool” with crowd control and, compared with their vigilance at major games in the mid-60s, did not seem to suppress the incidence of smuggled liquor into Lancaster Park. Rugby officials issue a warning before games and say “Tut tut” afterwards. When a complaint is aired, or they survey the evidence lying mutely on the terraces the next morning, demanding attention, cleaning up would be simple if the litter were only newspapers, discarded programmes and pie crusts! That our drinking pleasures bring thoughtlessness of another sort is illustrated in a way that should not be tolerated: driving.

Drinking driver Perhaps it is as well that my 130-mile journey home was in the dark. On the way up, when one can presume that solid drinking had not properly started, the roadside was liberally sprinkled with brown glass bottles. At one time, in a Limited Speed Zone, I was travelling at 50 m.p.h. behind a car. Nothing unusual about that, except that the driver had a beer bottle upended until it was drained. As with the crowded terraces, I cannot imagine a less pleasurable moment for a person to be drinking his beer than in the cramped driving seat of a car. Posture apart, ' a little attention had to be diverted to the road. Nor was it an isolated case. Another car pulled to the roadside, presumably for one of those frequent comfort stops, and as we passed the youthful driver opened his door, partly - consumed bottle of beer in hand. Add to these hundreds of motorists who drove long distances on Saturday, calling at a few pubs on the way. and unwittingly compounding the risks of road safety for themselves and other road users. In all the current panic and hysteria about drug abuse New Zealanders in the name of sanity must reflect on their indulgent attitudes. Adults who have by example encouraged the young to choose alcohol as the drug of choice should pause to see what it is doing to our sport, our highway smashes, and a deteriorating public health. Beer-keg dominant

Rugby officials, rightly concerned with the stamping out of dirty play and devising ways of recruiting the young, should see how the beer keg has dominated after-match functions and how it has affected lives at the club level. The alcoholic I have tried to help most over the years, who struggles towards sobriety as desperately as one would crawl from Hell, had his introduction to liquor as a 17-year-old, “talked into it” at club practice by the Rugby seniors who were, to him, heroes. Not now. Advertisements portraying a brawny footballer and a certain beer as “A Man’s Drink” do not assist his kind.

Only one arrest for drunkenness was made at Lancaster Park on Saturday. So the problem is not with the dead-drunk and helpless or with the consciencestricken and quarrelsome drunk. It is the gay, hearty, jocular, exhilirated drunk who trices the brakes Off his usually acceptable behaviour. The sporting crowd regards him as normally and vulgarly drunk. They laugh at him to cover their own uneasiness. Upon reflection, some of us should weep.

Harrier race.—A children’s run held by the New Brighton Harrier Club at Kawhiti Domain resulted: Under-9 boys: C. Caolter 1. Under-11 boys: K. Morel 1, P. Ranson 2. Under-14 boys: G. Hill 1, G. Kelly 2, G. Dodge 3. Under--9 girls: J. Wood 1, M. Henry 2. Under-11 girls.—Pack 1: M. Hadley 1. J. Nolan 2, G. Henry 3. Pack 2: H. Duncraft 1, R. Tennant 2, J. Liley 3. Under 14 girls: J. Gleeson 1.