“A DRUNKEN ORGY”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 264, 4 August 1937, Page 10

“A DRUNKEN ORGY”

Southland “Invasion” of Dunedin

PRESBYTERY DISCUSSION

Dominion Special Service.

Dunedin, August 3.

The opinion that the Southland “invirion” of Dunedin last week-end for the Ranfurly Shield match was nothing more or less than a drunken or ,r v was expressed by tlie Rev. J. D. Smith at a meeting of the Presbytery of Dunedin to-night. It was decided, on the recommendation of Hie Public Questions Committee to approach both tlie Otago and Southland Rugby Unions ■md the Railways Department witli the object of securing their co-operation m discouraging occurrences of a similar kind in future. “Tlie ‘invasion,’ winch took place last Saturday, was nothing less than a drunken orgy,” Mr. Smith said. “It is no credit to the city of Dunedin that the things that happened last. Friday, Saturday and Sunday should have taken place within its bounds. There were certainly thousands of people under the influence of liquor in the city during that time, and there was quite obvious evidence of parties setting out deliberately to get drunk. Apparently some of them commenced from the time they left home, because a good many were under the influence of liquor when tiiey arrived here. “At: the football match at Carisbrook it was obvious,” Air. Smith continued, “that large numbers of those in the crowd were in no fit condition to know what was going on and they wer6 merely making a nuisance of themselves by pouring beer over other people’s clothes and being sick. All that sort of thing is just a disgusting orgy, especially when it takes place in connection witli something that has to do with the building-up of fine physical condition. While the men who were playing showed the value of a game that helps to build up bodily condition, others seemed to be doing their best, to break it down. I will move on behalf of the Public Questions Committee that letters be sent to the Otago and Southland Rugby Unions requesting their co-operation in refusing admission to football matches of people under the influence of liquor, and also that the attention of the Railways Department be drawn to the amount of liquor carried on trains last week-end. The Rev. T. Miller said he attended the Ranfurly Shield match last Saturday, and round about him there was just an orgy of drink. The sad tiling was that young men brought liquor with them in very large quantities. He thought the Rugby unions should _ do something to prevent that sort of thing. “I attended a big iuter-State cricket match in Australia some years ago,”’ said Mr. Miller. “There were hundreds of bottles lying about, but they were all lemonade bottles. It is strange that we have to come to Presbyterian Dunedin to find such a regrettable state of affairs as prevailed last Saturday.” . The motion whs carried without further discussion.

UNEDIFYING SIGHTS Comment by Newspaper Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, August 3. The “Otago Daily Times,” iu an editorial on the Ranfurly Shield match, says: “The huge attendance at Carisbrook was in the main, orderly and well behaved, but it is questionable whether the elevation of sport to such a position a a first-class Rugby football has come to occupy in the public mind is desirable. Organised interest on such _ a scale, as was witnessed on this occasion and as on similar occasions in the past, was almost certain to lead to excesses on the part of less responsible elements. It is not an edifying thing to see whole groups of visitors under the influence of liquor. It is a distressing and disturbing thing to see young men in particular making a football match an excuse for unseemly licence and public parade of folly. “Interest in sport cannot be wholesome when it thus expresses itself. The game provided a manly spectacle, but reflected iu street conduct there were aspects of the gathering attracted by the match that did not suggest manliness so much as an indifferent sense of moral responsibility in the country’s youth.”