PASSING THE BALL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 39, 14 August 1926, Page 16

PASSING THE BALL

The "Children's Newspaper" has something to say about ""Passing the Ball,^' which should interest us all:—

Many years have passed, since an English mother, after watching a game of Rugby football in a park, exclaimed, "I'm sure I shall never let a son of mine play football!" She lived to see her son captain of the English team. He was every inch a sportsman. Ho Joyed Eugby because combination was "its vital feature. He preferred success in combination with others to success gained by his own efforts. Lovers of the game, it is said, came to feel that there was no more thrilling sight on any Bugby ground than a clever run by Bonald Poulton, finished off by an unselfish pass and a colleague's score! He would dash almost the whole length of the ground, and at the last moment he would pass, to give another the honour of scoring. Passing the ball is one of the most difficult lessons to learn. Lately tho writer^ watched a school football match in which the players were all youngsters, just, beginning. Ono of their greatest difficulties was to pass the ball. Once a boy got the ball it seemed to mesmerise him, and many a chance was missed through the eagerness of each boy to win glory for himself. It is not a fault found only in beginners. It shows its face in many a grown-up team. Many a game is lost because somo man refuses to pass, or keeps the ball so long that when he does pass it is already a forlorn hope. Passing the ball does not seem to come naturally. It cpmes through long training and discipline of the spirit. Mr. Basil' Mathews has told us of a very unusual game he watched in Beyrout. The captain was a negro from Egypt. The backs were a Turk and an Armenian, and the team had in it a Greek, a Copt, and an Arab, and the trainer an Irishman. They represented four continents, and the trainer said the difficulty was to teach them team play. But once he had taught them to pass the ball he felt he had won. The Armenian passed to the Turk (his father had been massacred by Turks) tho Turk passed to the Greek, the Greek passed to the negro, who scored. The football ground is teaching them all a great lesson, for the lesson of passing the ball is badly needed in the game of life. Even in each nation how little real team work there is between one section and another! In time of war we come to something like co-operation, but what happens with the signing of peace? Is not the trouble in industry at Home, as well as in politics abroad, that men and nations will not pass the ball?

The missing letter in last week's puzzle sentonce was O. This is how the sentence should read: "You should go out. on our sports ground, for then you would know how good our courts are.''