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Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 22, 25 July 1936, Page 25

NEW ZEALAND TEAM

WEST COAST SUGGESTION

"The decisive victories by the Australian visitors must make the Soccer selectors scratch their heads and ask what is wrong with New Zealand Soccer talent," writes "Onlooker" from the West Coast.

"There is no doubt that the selectors are at fault; New Zealand has Soccer talent, but it is not to be found in the cities. The coached Soccer player is not the New Zealand representative. We must go further afield, to the mining towns of the Dominion, where the various English county dialects are spoken freely. They are the home of the Soccer code, where it first flourished and prospered, and thus spread to the centres. And it is there that the Soccer talent of New Zealand lies dormant, awaiting its chance for representative recognition, while our selectors pick from the centres and overlook the natural Soccer player.

"In the mining township of Millerton in the Buller county there is a team known as the 'All Blacks,' who for many years have been finalists and semi-finalists in that contest for supremacy of the Soccer code in New Zealand, the Chatham Cup competition. Did any of these lads gain inclusion in the New Zealand representatives? Definitely no. One asks, 'Why not?'

"The writer advances the theory that if the New Zealand representative team was composed of the star men of the clubs who have in the past competed for the Chatham Cup and came out on top—Maori Hill, Thistle, Waterside, etc. —these players would give the Australians something to think about. After all, are they not New Zealand's Soccer elect?

"Lads who hail from the land of the rose, the heather, the leek, and even the shamrock, introduced the game. New Zealand never saw a Soccer ball till these immigrants showed them one.

"Does Soccer take pride of place in our schools, colleges,, and universities? Has anyone ever heard of a New Zealand University Soccer team? Except in the mining townships, schools teach the youthful player the Rugby code. In England the League game holds sway throughout the winter.

"Where, then, should New Zealand's representative side be picked from? The New Zealand-born player who learnt his Soccer in a city gymnasium, under an English instructor, or from our mining villages where dwell the true exponent of the Soccer game?"

["Onlooker's" suggestion that the best New Zealand Soccer team could be selected from the mining towns of the West Coast will not meet with the agreement of those in other parts of the Dominion, nor do the facts support it as fully as suggested. While the Millerton All Blacks have reached the final game for the Chatham Cup once, various city teams have appeared regularly in it.—"Vanguard."]