FOOTBALL BANNED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1122, 9 May 1911, Page 5

FOOTBALL BANNED.

» • COLLEGE PRINCIPAL'S ACTION. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrisht. Melbourne, May 8. Mr. Lawrence Adamson, 13.A., headmaster of Wesley College, has forbidden a member of the teaching staff to play senior football. He also refuses to allow any of the boarders to attend football matches. Mr. Adamson says the curso of football is the largo gate money consequent on professionalism, which has caused tho game to lose its utility and purity. Even women attending matches become raving maniacs. HOODLUMS IN POSSESSION. Wesley College is one of the principal secondary schools in Melbourne, secondary education in Victoria having been leit by the State- in the hands of the churcnes. Mr. Adamson has taken a good deal of interest in sport. Ha was troin 1902 to 1904 president of the Victorian Amateur Athletic Association, and for a period was chairman of the Australian tfoard of Control of International Cricket. An attempt has been mado amongst a certain -section of footballers in Melbourne to make football a business in which the one object to be striven for was profit to be split among players and managers. It has been universally recognised that both league and association clubs have all along been paying players, and that the olt-repeated statement of both, governing bodies, that the sport was being conducted on strictly amateur lines was simple hyperbole that deceived nobody. "Two causes," writes "Markwell," in the "Australasian," "have conspired to bring the sport into a particularly perilous condition. The first has been the enormous increase of members at ss. per head. This membership consists largely of the 'hoodlums' of the different districts in which clubs exist; and it is, therefore, tho undesirables in the majority of suburbs that select executives, and practically control the game. League and association must have seen this menace growing; though, with characteristic indifference, they took no steps to counteract its influence. Consequently, they now find themselves completely, and very deservedly, at its mercy. "Possibly the income* derived through the sale of members' tickets was a boon when gate receipts were low. Of late years, however, tho total of takings from both sources have loomed very large, and have led to extravagant outlay upon players and others connected with the clubs. This extravagance has brought in its train further evils. Tho pampered player, feeling that he cannot be done without, has called (and is still calling) for more and more 'expenses.' The enormous sums at the disposal of executives have begun to be insufficient to satisfy demands. The result is that men who should be playing the game because they like it, but who arc really out for plunder, look for other means of self-aggran-disement. They will have more than their clubs can afford to pay them; and in their greed they are more than occasionally prone to the betraying of their backers and employers. Inquiries held last year in connection with cases of alleged corruption wero not sufficiently exhaustive to be satisfactory or effective. Cases were but partially ventilated, but there came to light morn than enough to show to tho public that matches wero not all played on their merits, and that results wpro sometimes unreliable. This state of things is highly re-Tettablo. The public, that is. to say. those amongst citizens who favour clean sport, will surely withdraw their patronage from a game that seems to be falling into tho hands of adventurers."