BRITISH SPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 93, 17 October 1934, Page 16

BRITISH SPORT

"STILL SNOB-RIDDEN"

A JOURNALIST'S PROTEST

SOCIAL BAKBIEIiS

Wo aro having a season oi' unparalleled success in. sport. In golf, lawn tennis, and athletics triumphs have followed or.c another in a glittering procession of achievement, writes J. H. Freeman, sporting editor of tho "Daily Mail," in that journal. It is neither a pleasant nor a grateful task to disturb the serenity of this atinosplicro of ■well-being, to draw attention to the clouds, some of them already bigger than a man's hand, that may so soon obscure the sporting sky with the grey pall of mediocrity and failure. Tho chief threats to our future in sport lie in our national attitude of selfcomplacency; in a refusal to tackle a problem until it has assumed dangerous dimensions; in a deliberately adopted shield of pseudo-modesty that is the more supremely irritating because it is so smug. I must return to another and equally important menace to our future success —to a snobbishness that is being increasingly manifest on our tennis courts and football fields, and that is rearing its head onco more in our cricket pavilions, where we fancied it had been stricken a mortal blow. It would not bo a good thing for our sport, and would be most deiinitcly a bad thing for our self-esteem, if wo were able to see the flag of victory floating in the breeze for unnumbered years. IN THE WAY. 1 But, in my view, there is nothing but a combination of regrettable shortsightedness, false diffidence, and hateful snobbery, standing in the way of our training, equipping, and maintaining national teams in most fields of sport that would be a credit to Britain in every sense of the term. But we start, all wrong, with the idea that the games masters and the coaches in our public schools, who aro able to instil in our boys the joy of life, aro socially inferior to tho men who teach them the languages of peoples that are dead. And we pay them accordingly so as to complete tho vicious circle. The boys grow up with the idea that academic distinction which leads to well-paid posts in schools and universities, in Parliament, and in industry, will meet with parental and national approval, and that super-excellence with a cricket bat or tennis racket which means a paid engagement with a county or social club, is a step down tho scale towards social degradation. The spirit behind the incident at Wimbledon the other week which led to a leading amateur lawn tennis player remarking to William T. Tilden, "I must not be seen talking with you," is to me appalling. Tho player concerned was but interpreting the views that had been conveyed to him, by inference if not directly. It is lamentable that for a long period tho governing body of one sport should have- denied an admittedly deserved international cap to art amateur player, because his brother was a professional under another code. THE TWO GATES. It makes me wish-to stand up and cry "Shame!" every time I see two men come out of a gate from one cricket pavilion and nine others emerge from another. It is such things as these that are preventing us from choosing and keeping together, and assisting by every means in our power, the best possible representatives that should do duty for Great Britain in international fields of sport. What is holding back the M.C.C. from choosing an England team next April, putting them, in the care of a manager, and pitting them in turn against the counties, so that when they face South Africa in the- Tests they_ shall be a coherent whole? Lack of imagination partly; and partly the national characteristic of antipathy to organising except for the immediate future; above everything else a pathetic snobbishness that refuses to deal a hammer blow at the falsely erected barriers between paid and unpaid players. Why it should be more logical to manage and treat as a whole a team that plays Australia in Australia and leavo in scattered units a side that faces Australia in England, is boyond me. MUST ORGANISE. j I shall be told that the county clubs would oppose the idea. Onco they had grasped its potentialities, playing and financial, I boliovo they would welcome it. And (to put the matter on a purely selfish, basis) how many county clubs could survive without the money from international cricket? It is certain, too, that the needs and the strength of tho clubs in the Football League would be antagonistic to the formation of a national team owned, controlled, and maintained by the national body, the Football Association. I see- no supremo difficulty in tho recruitment of such a team, from the clubs, with, the payment of compensa-; tion by the national authority on a basis similar to the present transfer system. That team could function throughout the season, playing in representative matches at home and on the Continent especially on the Continent, where our football prestige is getting lower and lower because of tho haphazard and casual method of selection, subject to the whims of clubs after the long English playing season is over. A careful analysis of the reasons of Britain's present supremacy in sport leaves the very definite impression that exceptional material, and not far-seeing government, has been the prime factor. If we anticipate that four years hence a Cotton, a Perry, an Austin, a Dorothy Round, .and (perhaps) a winning Testteam will be produced again in one season, wo shall be disappointed. We shall have to tackle our sportiu a broadly tolerant spirit, and yet with a thorough attention to detail. We must let our men and women know that the sports field has no inner ring for a favoured few; we must organise down to tho last button and tho last shoelace.