IDEALS OF SPORT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 122, 23 May 1908, Page 4

IDEALS OF SPORT.

The British — or to be perfectly precise, the Anglo-Welsh— footballers' have been with us for nearly a week. They arrived last Monday morning, had theii first practice in the afternoon, and play their first match to-day. They have had five days in which to recover from the effects of a long sea-voyage and to get into training. In thoso five days it has been possible to get an idea of the representative team and its ways. ♦To one who knows the Old Country as well as he knows .New Zealand, the events of those five days suggest the different ideals of sport of the two countries. It is a trite saying that the English take their pleasure seriously. It is equally true, so 'far as the saying goes, that they take their sport seriously too. This is shown by the number of sporting papers and magazines, as well as by the space devoted in the ordinary journals to eport. Yet it must be admitted that we take our sport far more seriously. In the first place, .footballers go into regular training at the commencement of the season and continue so until the end. We have our gymnasiums, wuere young men practise footballing movements until they are as expert as a piece of fine machinery. They think of the game and practise the game during the week to play it at the week-end. There is nothing but football to the footballer during the football season. He lives for the game ; he is prepared to undergo any amount of self-sacrifice and self-denial to ensure the success of his team. Ho becomes as skilful as a professional. Between niir> and the professional their lies but the matter of payment.

Where tho German is prepared to scorn delights and live laborious days, it is for the attainment of excellence in the art of war or the science of industry. • With our young men it is for the achievement of the maximum efficiency in their favourite game. They have made a study of .football, and have reduced it jjo a science. It is not so with our players from the ' Motherland. To them football is a game and nothing more. As a fine game it gained their support, as a bs-all and end-all it would not merit their consideration. This explains/ the carelessness of Englishmen about training, be the branch of sport what it may. While Americans in their athletics go to endless pains to secure v tho most trifling advantage, the Engylishniiin will take all risks and no trouble. Ho runs for the pleasure of running. That is his mam purpose, and iiot to win. Hence we see the elaborate precautions taken by American athletes •against catching a chill, and tho utter abandon of the Englishman. Hence the secret preparations of the All-Black team at Newton Abbot and the happy-go-luckv style of many of their opponents. The ultimate fate of the exponents of the respective methods is perfectly foreshadowed. Applied knowledge wins every time. But the Englishmen have an argument. "Sport/ 1 they say, "is not like other things. It is the anti' thesis of everyday life ; it is a recreation, not a business, and ence you intro* duce the scientific method, away goes the true atmosphere of sport. Football is all we have Jefb of the ancient chivalry. Do not let us degrade it by making it a mere system."

This feeling on the part of Englishmen is typified in an article on the Oxford and Cambridge boat raco in a lecent number of the Westminster Gazette. We extract tho conclusion :—: — Finally, the boat raco is a tradition* as well as an existing and still flourishing institution — a tradition holding all that is best in the spirit of English sport. There is nothing furtive or underhanded about it — no surprises 'up tho sleeve.' Its open piactice astonishes Ampa-jpan vavaittH. nV.U. U'hi) 'raw rpnnv' .

in their trials, and profit by what is 'smart,' and,- keep their 'form' and all the details of their training as strict secrets fronvthe enemy. But there is no 'enemy' in the boat race ; only a friendly rivalry, as open as ,keen. Cambridge does not'shun tho light, and Oxford keeps nothing dark but its colours. Such is the tradition — hitherto worthily upheld. It will be a thousand pities if justification is ever given for the suggestions of 'secret trials' that have been made, during the last few days. Tho boat race is the most reputable event in English athletics ; but to 'secret trials' would succeed the stage of 'stable tips,' and all that follows; and then to most of us on tho towing-path the glory of the race would have passed for ever."

With all of this we heartily agree ; yet we say, "If you are going to play the game, play the game. Make a good job of it. Put into your rowing, your cricket, your football, or any other branch of sport you may' adopt, all that you know. Play it with professional skill, if without professional emolument. That is the tspirit of New Zealand in sport, and w© think that if English amateurs had shown a similar spirit there would have been less of professional footbajl in tho Old Country than there is now." Whether or not the energy expended in sport might not" be better directed, as, for instance, into the channels of national defence, is another matter.