Badminton becoming a more colourful sport

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33878, 25 June 1975, Page 12

Badminton becoming a more colourful sport

(By

KEVIN McMENAMIN)

Traditionally a “white sport,” badminton has bowed to fashion by permitting some colour to be worn on the court.

An advocate of the change is Mr Don Higgins, a leading player for many years and a member of the management committee of the Wellingtonbased New Zealand Badminton Federation.

Mr Higgins represented Hutt Valley at the recent Wisden Cup tournament in Christchurch and his playing wardrobe included *'oth canary and blue shorts. It was also noticeable at the Wisden Cup that there were other more subtle moves towards colour. These included such things as coloured pockets and

strips on shirts, shorts and dresses.

Earlier, Mr Higgins had raised the topic of coloured apparel at a meeting of the national executive and as a result the federation decreed that “it is not opposed to the restrained use of colour in sports clothing."

The Auckland and Southland associations are both known to want to bring more colour into the game, but the Canterbury association at its annual meeting this year decided that for the time being it would continue to favour allwhite dress.

The president of the Canterbury association (Mr J. R. Thome) said this week that his association was quite happy to move with the times and allow colour, but not before regulation dress was widely available in colour.

By its decision, the federation has given individual associations a fair

amount of autonomy on the question. It will therefore be the players themselves who largely determine what they wear and this probably means that in time colour will become commonplace.