OFF THE FIELD

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 266, 6 August 1937, Page 13

OFF THE FIELD

The Springbok Players From a Woman’s Angle

TWENTY-NINE JOLLY COMRADES

(By

O.M.A.)

Women don’t like the cold impersonality of team games. When they barrack, they squeal joyously for Tom Jones or Jim Smith, or Harry or Joe or Bin —never for such an un-indivi-dunl thing iis a team. Football writers don’t realise that. There never was a football writer who could really please a woman. So I went to see the Springboks where they are really most exciting—off the field. To tell the truth, though it is best to whisper it in Wellington just at present, I don’t much like Rugby football. But I do like those Springboks. “Ten-a-ton”men they called them in Australia, and, having met them, you would say it was only a stone or two exaggeration. The South African giants, who have come 8000 miles in the hope of lowering the All Black colours, are framed to magnificent proportions, broad boned and solid, with muscles that bulge through the protesting cloth of their sports coats and blazers.

Yesterday afternoon I saw them arrive at their hotel, jumping down lightly from the bus that had brought them from the station. They had to push through a crowd of curious bystanders to reach the lobby, and, once there, spent half of their time being patiently polite to a herd of adoring schoolboys with autograph-books. Autograph-books, by the way, are becoming the team’s nightmare. When you mention the words, a pallor takes the bronze from the cheeks of the heroes who know no fear of flying, nailed boots or suffocating scrum.

“Autographs,” exclaimed one of them yesterday, “please let us talk of something . else. Autographs are unspeakable. We endure them in bundles of 60 at a time in every town we visit. Sounds easy, but when you have to open and sign the 60 autograph-books it seems like hard work.”

Someone suggested charging a shilling for every signature, but the querulous Springbok shook his head. “Not the kids,” he said, sadly. “A shilling would hit them too hard. No. we have to do it. Somehow, even buying a rubber stamp does not seem to me like playing the game. I bar only signing pieces of paper.” Speeches Don’t Lie.

That remark is typical of the Springboks. In speeches they are described as Hie finest band of men that have yet come to chase the leather on our shores. And the speeches (rather strangely 1) for once state no more than the truth. For the Springboks are as courteous, unaffected and good-hu-moured to meet socially as they are sporting and generous upon the football field. If New Zealand cannot learn something from their spirit, then New Zealand has gone past the stage of learning anything. The South Africans’ charm was nowhere better displayed than in the palm lounge of,the Hotel St. George yesterday afternoon at a sherry party given in their honour by the New Zealand Rugby Union. The team were not dressed for the part. They had travelled from Palmerston North in plus fours and grey slacks, many wearing their famous green blazers and those green ties with little brown deer leaping across them. But the informality of the clothes was one of the few things you did not notice about the men. They themselves were too interesting for feminine eyes. Very soon it became an urgent problem to know which were married and which bachelors. But all inquiries were met by cheerful smiles and polite evasions. "Our lips are sealed,” cried a ffieinber of the official party. So 1 put my questions more bluntly. “How do you like New Zealand girls?” They just smiled, but I decided that the answer was favourable. “And I suppose,” I continued wistfully, “that you are in very strict training. You have no time for parties and dances?” It was Freddie Turner who answered. “Parties,” he said gallantly, “are part of our training.” And from one glance at Freddie Turner, you would imagine that the training must be hard on women’s hearts. Much smaller and slighter than the average of the team, Turner makes up for his stature with the brightest and most twinkling pair of brown eyes and a broad smile that gleams white in his tanned face. The “Great Lover.” Turner at the present is room-mate with black haired, stocky Pat Lyster, lawyer when at home, who was introduced as the “Great Lover,” and strenuously disclaimed the title. He did not feel in the mood for his reputation, anyway, because he had been “robbed of his shave” in the morning and was

feeling grubby and tired. “People are too kind, too enthusiastic, and their hospitality is too overwhelming,” he said. “It’s fine, but sometimes it makes you sleepy, and my eyes at this moment are dropping together.” He shot them open with an elaborate effort and made a suave departure, still smiling. I found an escort who piloted me circumspectly among others of the team. Phil Nel, captain, tall, modest, and good-looking (married, with two children), was surrounded by officials and Danie Craven, vice-captain, who is chunky and broad of face, with dark, sparkling eyes, was also beyond mere mortal reach.

Gerry Brand, hero of many a dour game, was talking in a corner Very fair, with eyelids hooded over his blue eyes, Brand reminds one faintly of a more virile Franchot Tone —although Franchot Tone would surely never appear in an hotel lounge with a patch of skin off the side of his nose. Then there was Van Reenau, tallest man in the team, soft-voiced and slowmoving, with a slow, friendly smile: Howard Watt of Hie curly hair and, they say, an efficient tongue when it comes to expressing himself; Pierre de Villiers, half-back, short and slim, curly-headed, quiet with strangers; Fanie Louw, with a bullet head and a blue, cleft chin and dynamic movements.

Ferdie Bergh, with a profile like Johnny Weismuller when he smiles, was pointed out as the “Human Snake” and blamed for burdening bis teammates with the duty of attending to his enormous fan mail. On the field, he has more weight to put into his work than any of the others. There he abandons his reptilian pseudonym and overawed opponents dub him the “Human Tank.” Yeti another giant is Mauritz van den Berg, a flaxen-haired, raw-boned icecream dealer, whoee hair is combed back in an obstinate wave that would make a beauty specialist sigh wistfully. Kollie Hofmeyr, slim and goodlooking, has a wistful look in his eyes that will get him partners easily. Jimmy White, agent for an oil firm, has the suavest of manners and the brownest, of eyes. Freckle-faced Tony Harris is another of the smaller men; Ebbo Bastard, plump and dark, a little’thin of hair; J. W. Lotz, broad and cheerful. Dendy Lawton is the man with the appetite, his record, 16 eggs for breakfast! One of his liveliest memories of New Zealand is tumbling on Mount Eg. monb snows.

“And I went ski-ing,” he added. “I took up a girl.” "Ski-ing? But you said you had no skis?” “Did I? I went ski-ing. though.”

We laughed, as it is so easy to do with the Springboks—as they tell you they do so easily among themselves. These men are comrades —off the field and on —29 jolly comrades on a splendid adventure. That is the reason why even a ivoman who knows lit'tle of Rugby football and cares less, can still be as excited over the Springboks as any man who watched the points-scoring machine mow down Manawatu for that disastrous 39 to 3.