TO PLAY ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 112, 13 May 1937, Page 5

TO PLAY ENGLAND

ASSOCIATION TEAM

SEVENTEEN MEN TO TRAIN

Seventeen players from whom will be chosen the team to represent Wel-lington-Manawatu-Wairarapa against England in the Association football match to be played on the Basin Re-' serve on Saturday fortnight, May 29. were today selected by Mr. George F. Aers, the Wellington Football Association sole selector, as follows: —

Goalkeepers.—Wyatt (Hospital) and Parton (Seatoun). -

Full-backs.—Miles (Hospital), Haines (Petone).

Halves.—Todd (Hospital), Jeffery (Hospital), Longbottom (Waterside), N. Gates (Technical O.B.), Cocks (Waterside).

Forwards.—Leslie (Petone). Hatchard (Marist), Woods (Hospital), Allan (Manawatu), Janes (Waterside), Wilson (Seatoun), Gendall (Seatoun), McKenzie (Seatoun).

These players are to meet for final training in the Technical College gymnasium at 7.30 p.m. on the-two Tuesdays before the match and Allan, of Palmerston North, has been notified to keep himself in strict training; Any player not available should notify the selector without delay.

Mr. Aers has placed his trust in experience of which the local side will need all it has to make a good showing against the formidable Englishmen. Although the average age of those selected is not high, only three, Gates, Wilson, and Allan have not been in previous Wellington representative elevens. Not everyone will agree with the selector's choice of goalkeepers, but he could have obtained no better full-backs. The halves, upon whose efforts so much depends, are all shrewd players who, besides having excellent individual records, know one another's play from past experience. They should prove worthy Of their opponents, both on attack and in defence. The forwards are numerically~ strong in the centre and on the left, but Wilson is the only regular rig Tit-winger chosen: In spite of this, however, the choice of the front line men should give general satisfaction to with a knowledge of this season's performances. Of the three Wairarapa and two Manawatu players who participated in the recent trial game, only one, Allan, of Manawatu, was considered worthy of selection, and there can be no gainsaying his worth. Altogether Mr. Aers has made a sound- choice of players from whom he can weld an eleven of speed, skill, and experience. His trouble will be to decide whom to omit. A likely team would be:—Parton; Miles, Haines; Todd, Jeffery, Cocks; Wilson, Allan, Leslie, Hatchard, Woods.—"Vanguard."