START IN AUCKLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 22

START IN AUCKLAND

The conditions were ideal last Saturday for the preliminary canter staged by the Auckland- Football Association at Blaridford Park as an introduction for the 1935 season. Contrary to expectations the seven-a-side competition did not prove the popular attraction to the teams that it was thought, official-' ly, it would do, and there were only eight entrants, one of which defaulted. The skeleton team does not seem, to appeal to player's nowadays. The game is not known,, and on Saturday only one or two of the teams'gave much indication of understanding anything about the strategy of it, says the "Auckland Star." The best game of the tourney was the meeting of Abels, the ultimate winners, and Thistle A in the semi-final, when the score was 1-0. The extreme wingers were used to the best advantage, and there were moves and counter-moves that indicated understanding on the. part of the players. The final was fast and keenly contested, with Comrades pitting their youth and speed against the experience of Abels. Speed counts for so much in seven!or five-a-side football, but Comrades could not make the best of it. In the end a corner decided the issue, giving Abels the verdict. ■ ;■ The interest aroused in the first appearance of the team from the sloop Leith, just arrived on the New Zealand station, was gratified in the display the side gave against Ponsonby. when a very strenuous game for the opening of the season ended in victory; to the Service by 5-3.'