SPORTING VISIT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 9

SPORTING VISIT

GERMANS IN LONDON

INTERNATIONAL SOCCER

ENTHUSIASM FOR GAME

(Written for "The Post.")

The international Soccer footbalJ match between England and Germanythrough the sounding-board of the Press, has been played on a world stage. It has signalised the greatest influx of foreigners into London, according to the cablegrams, within living memory.

The team arrived by air travel on Monday. Fifteen special trains, an ocean liner of 35,000 tons, and eight cross-Channel steamers were chartered to transport the ten thousand German football enthusiasts from the Fatherland to England's metropolis to witness the game.

The assurance of both British and German statesmen that such an invasion has no sinister or political motive may be accepted with wholehearted confidence. It is a sporting gesture from the new Germany, which has become athletic, to the classic land of sport which for generations led the world in this realm of human endeavour. It follows other gestures, which show that the wounds inflicted in the epic conflict of 1914-18 are being healed. Ex-servicemen from England have been the guests of German ex-soldiers, who fought them in the Great War. And German ex-servicemen who have crossed the North Sea, have received a like welcome from England's gallant sons. A few days ago the ex-Kaiser, through his grandson, laid a wreath upon the bier of Lord Jellicoe, who commanded England's, battleships in the engagement with the fleet of Germany in the North Sea. This rapprochement between two erstwhile foes should be welcomed as a sign of the coming days when the fighting instincts of the nations shall find vent in friendly rivalry in art and science as well as sport, for the mutual welfare of all. .

In the new Germany a nation-wide r movement has been sponsored by the c Government which has the motto + "Strength Through 'Joy." Under it there has been developed an organ- t isation for leisure unparalleled in any j other land. Millions of German youth of both sexes are weekly on the tramp, and find cheap and excellent accommodation in hotels which have been established by scores oi thousands all over the land. Holiday trips are organised to German pleasure resorts at , a cost within the reach of all classes. J Pleasure cruises by steamer to the Baltic ports, the Norwegian Fiords, are arranged for working-class folk. ' Last March and April, ten thousand workmen, under the "Strength Through Joy" movement, were able to take an Atlantic cruise. Three ocean liners were chartered, and Lisbon, Maderia, and the Azores in mid-Atlantic were ( visited. Doubtless the London inva- t sion by German football enthusiasts has been arranged by the same agency. [ "KINO FOOTBALL,." \ During Ihe Middle Ages, and through < the Nineteenth Century, football was 1 largely taboo in Germany. One reason i given was that country yokels ex- t celled in this form of sport to the dis- ( comfiture of their superiors. Arm- t chair critics denounced it because it r was an affair of "legs and feet" which t should be discountenanced by people of education and culture. : "Duriflg the: early'; years of this century the game fought against prejudice for national recognition. In 1908 Germany entered the international football arena, and scored a win against Sweden 3 to 1. Since that year one hundred international matches have been played, Germany losing as many as she has won. The first contest with England was in 1930, the match resulting in a draw. Since the Great War ' the popularity of the game has become ! universal throughout Germany, and ' has been enthroned in the national ' consciousness. It is acclaimed by the people as the chief of sports, being ' called "King Football." The German Football Association is the largest sports union in the world, numbering between one and two million members. This in part explains the migration of ten thousand football fans to London; and behind these there w=s doubtless a nation of sixty million listeners-in. The new Germany justifies the adoption of football as the national sport on moral as well as physical grounds. In an article received recently from Germany the writer claims: : "From a sporting standpoint, football : comprises practically all other kinds of : sport, as for instance the speed of the short-distance runner, the perseverance required in a long-distance race, the feather-like elasticity of the high jump, the difficult art of the long jump, the bodily strength of the athlete, and the rapidity of the gymnast. It finally means overcoming the difficulties encountered in an obstacle race and sports performed with apparatus. All types of men can become prominent in football, the heavy .player through . hia strength, the more delicate player through his skill and rapidity; it is a game for big and small- alike. The chief point to be observed is that each player combines control of the ball with his particular physical constitution. All can play football who wish to do so, and it is in the nature of things that it should be called 'King Football,' as the 'people' have named A CURTAIN-RAISER? Information which the writer has from an enthusiastic friend in the Fatherland shows that the international event at Tottenham on Wednesday was regarded by Germany as a prelude to the epic struggle which will take place at the Olympic Games next August. The team that took the field against England had—with their substitutes—been in training for months past. And Germany expected them to demonstrate in this test their fitness to represent the Fatherland in the Olympiad, and when the final whistle blows to be acclaimed victors against the world. r The new Germany follows the.tradition of ancient Greece, and accords to athletics an essential place in the cultural development of the individual and the nation. By the training and discipline of athletics the powers of body and mind are splendidly developed. Then by the stimulus of the contest, man against man and team against team, under the glow and overflow of sensation, the athlete performs feats which stretch his manhood to the utmost. The reactions on personality and life are of the highest human value. Thus Pericles, one of the noblest of ancient Greeks, wrote:— We have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil; we have regular games and sacrifices through the year; and the delight we feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. The Olympic Games were inaugurated in 776 B.C. They ran a great course of nearly twelve hundred years, being suppressed by the Christian fenperor Thedosius I 394 A.D. It was doubtless their association with pagan fStes which led to their suppression. Vt has ever been the folly of earnest men to pluck up the wheat with the tares. The suppression of the Games marked a stage in the decadence of