TOO TAME

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1925, Page 9

TOO TAME

AMERICANS ON OUR SPORTS

AMUSING COMMENTS,

(■1 tILIOSAPS—SPICUt TO TBl POST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day.

New Zealand sports are slow, or at least that is the opinion oi the American officers and men who were spectators at Ellersli* and various paries on Saturday. Possibly when Auckland*™ see the exposition of American football and baseball to be,given by the visitor* this week they will be similarly unenthusisstic. It is hard at first jump to take a keen interest in sports to which the spectator is a', stranger. Baseball or Rugby "fans" are not the product of a moment; the taste is not spontaneous But acquired. . • • For the spectators in their immediate neighbourhood a party of; American sailors watching Soccer at ■ Blandford Park ' provided no little amusement. It was obvious that they, did not know the game, but the Eoyal Navy was playing Thistle, and as a matter of i course they had decided to' " root" for their cousins in the same profession. Apparently Association rules make for a much more gentle game than American football, for, although they appeared to take an interest in the game, the visitors sometimes expressed a little contempt in their remarks. "Say," said one to* his companions, " I'd sure like to tee some of our girls back home playing this game. Suit them fine, I guess. SOMETHING FAMILIAR. When a Thistle player was injured and the St. John Ambulance men rushed on to the field to his aid, " Jackie " brought the house down by asking, "What they gonna do, arrest him?" As the player was carried off* there was a chorus of " Well, now that looks like , something familiar, don't it?" | Inquiries elicited the information that the American game invariably provides a series of " knock out*," each side having quite a string of reserve players on the side, line ready to take the places of the "fallen." The League football game at Carjaw Park was also voted too gentle by "the few Americans who found their way there. • • "Very slow, your game," said one. " Why, we only have time to publish our dead every three months." When a long pass was missed there was the quaint comment, "Why, they're playing too wide." The sailors barracked in unison and qnite impartially, giving vociferous encouragement to City and Devonport by turns. The Rugby game at Eden Park had most followers from the fleet, but their voice was lost in the crowd of 14,000 spectators. PRAISE FOR ELLERSLIE. Fair quotas found their way to Ellerslie. It could not bo said that they took close interest in the racing, although naturally quite a goodly pile of sovereigns was left in the totalisator at the end of the day. But horse racing in America is not a universal sport os in Now Zealand. Racing is carried on in only three put of the forty-eight States of the Union, New York, West Virginia, and Kentucky.. When i&ked how th* Jack vu going,

an officer said: "My pal here said, ' We'll back that horse,' and I said, 'Fine.' When the race finished _ my pal said the horse was a ' swine.' I figure your horseracing is just like our baseball. If you want to throw the game you can throw it. Now, our national game is baseball, and we bet on high runs just as you do on fast runs. Generally we follow form, but there is 'pulling' in our game sometimes, and the outsider chance romps home. You'll always jet that where there* betting on sport. But it has been- a real pleasure to see your Elkrslie. It is surely one of the world s show horse paddocks."