WARTIME SPORT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 7

WARTIME SPORT

New Zealanders In Italy

N.Z.E.F. Official News Service. BARI, May 25. The value of sport as an aid to physical fitness is fully appreciated by New Zealanders, and at the New Zealand convalescent depot in south Italy every facility is provided for playing popular sports. The depot is conducted on similar lines to the Eighth Army rest camp nearby, and, despite warm weather, hockey and football are still popular. Cricket, boxing, tennis and athletics give daily outdoor enjoyment for convalescents, while there is the usual variety of indoor pastimes as well in comfortable recreation centres.

Members of the New Zealand Division enjoy sport under varying conditions, but one section lays claim to having played cricket under shellfire, which 'became so intense* that the game was abandoned and the enemy declared the winner. “It just -wasn't cricket,” said one man, referring to enemy interference with the match. Play had been in progress an hour when air bursts attracted attention but were not sufficient to dampen the enthusiasm di the players. But when high explosives commenced to land in the vicinity of the cricket area 22 men had but a single thought—this is no time for play. No casualties occurred and, when the shelling ceased, players and spectators were more interested in adding extra inches to slit trenches than with recommencing the game. New Zealanders like their sport, specially Rugby and racing, and the first race meeting on Italian soil was staged by the 23rd New Zealand Battalion. Five races attracted good fields, and a properly conducted totalizator handled 440,000 lire. Mules were provided by a miTle pack company. No race was worth less than 6000 lire. The Cassino Hurdles, five furlongs, for a cup and 11,000 lire, was won appropriately enough by Rubble, whose breeding was described as “by Bomb from Fortress.” Another prominent runner was Africa Star,» “by Monty from Kindness.”