THE FUTURE OF SPORT

Evening Star, Issue 16987, 8 March 1919, Page 5

THE FUTURE OF SPORT

A BRIGHT OUTLOOK. Everything points to a great revival in sport now that the war is over. There are evidences of it on every hand and in almost every branch of sporting pursuits. War, "|it would seem, was a dreadfully unpleasant duty that was thrust upon people. They did that duty —wonderfully. They did not growl about it more than people growl about unpleasant duties generally; but now that it is over- they are glad to forget it, so far as that is 'possible, and be their own selves again, with perhaps a bit more energy than before. Cricket, which had languished considerably for soma years before the war is ! already reviving wonderfully in Australia, I. though comparatively so few of the boys are vet back. Pretty soon, as in the days I gone by, the davs of Trumper and such ! stalwarts, a big "match will be an event lof national importance. There was a time ! (and that not so very long ago) when I nearly every man and woman and child in i Australia was a cricket enthusiast 5 whon- : swaying crowds filled the streets before the '■ result boards outside- the newspaper offices j on big match days; when even racing fell ' at times into a place of secondary importI ance and interest. That day is coming ; n#ain. The returned soldier likes cricket. The ease and freedom and rapidity of the game all appeal to him. This is to be a very great revival. Football, too—another ! Rame the soldiers love. It was played j Franco when the country suited. German I under shellflro times past numbering in ; prisoners and aviators saw it played, and j m their stolid minds tba impression that i the English are mad deepened a good deal. j Germans have not the sporting instinct, ! and that is one of the reasons why they 1 had to lose the war. The people who I scolded for ever about our devotion to I sport in the old days have not been proved particularly wise people in the result. GOLF AND BOXING BOOMTNG. And there, is golf. Golf had something to do with the collapse of cricket in the years before the war. Golf is not merely a came; it is an ineradicable habit, a settled state of mind, a. sort of profound religious conviction, a solemn rite made gladsome. The enthusiasm for golf is going to grow and broaden now, as. enthusij psm for cricket and foothali is revived. :The soldier who was a golfer before the war is keener than ever on golf now thatthe war is virtually over. The youth at Manly who was a fat, good-natured child bifore the war is now a fat, good-natured Military Medallist, playing golf as eagerly j as ever] probably playing a little better than ■he did. And so on many golf links, as l at Manly, big improvements are toward, i new members are crowding in. The sot- ! dier will settle for ever the question of i Sunday coif, if it arises attain. The solI dicr had ~had to fight on Sundays, to take ! his wounds on Sundays, often to die on '■ Sundays. And now he nvans to golf on j Sundays. Real golf is a long day's job, 1 and Sunday is the one Ion? day that every man has free. The soldiers come back, too, keener than ever on boxing. Interest in the-Stadium, with the Hippodrome added, has sprung into enormous activity again. It is a man's sport, and it has a peculiar appeal for the straight %hter. In the ring a man must fight hard and I fight fair. He must follow the rules, with i plenty of opportunity for the play of personal" initiative. There are always people who will muddle up the corruptions and abuses of a thing wit?! the thing itself, and these people say that boxing is dreadful for this reason nnd for that. And there are the soft, flabby sort of people, who say that boxing is a brutal sport, the people who demand that popular games i and incidentally popular vices shall be en- ! tirely smooth and respectable. In Aus- • trnlia this sort of people, is, as to sport, a I diminishing class. The war has utterly I upset the calculations and destroyed the i hopes of the people who before the war /were laboring to make~hoxing illegal. If ! Cnrpentier visits Australia presently, he will Ik> accorded a national ovation. Boxing is in for another lease of extreme vitality. PRODIGIOUS RBSUSCITATION. Tn SydiK'V and other suitable places ' there will be a prodigious resuscitation of I all water sports ; the recent opening of the I yachting .mason gave earnest of that. It I is remarked that tho returned soldier loves ■ to potter about in a boat, even in cases where he never bothered about boating before tho war. Take- him out for a ra.il in ! a rollicking b.r-e-oze, .and you shall see- all ! his soul on fire. There will he more I surfers thnn ever n.-> the years go by, more 'scullers, more yachttnien. "There's going , to be another rush for half-deckers,'' said '. one sailing mar- this woek. '' It's the sort : of boat that appeals to all the hoys. They j hko the rush and scramble of it and tho j Abundant good company." I As to horse racing—w-ell, needless'to Bay, nothing cp.n ever kill racing. There yon have the If re of the gambling instinct added to tho pull of the sporting instinct. 7 ho war has taught us, if the lesson were j needed, that gambling is a deep-rooted j human iri'linet Every effort to stop ! gambling among the soldiers has been n. failure flat ,'ir.d absolute. The soldiers ', return with the settled determination to have their own way in their own affairs. I That Ls the meaning of all their associations, their agitations, their letters to th<papers, and all the rest of it. They will have the sport they want, just as much of it. as they want, and they mean to have all tho sport they can get Few honest citi- ; zeni will question the „''g' lf - °f the sol■c'ers to all tho joy a:i^satisfaction W3 j can give them. ! REVIVAL DETERMINED AND CERi TAIN. The great revival of sport is a thing i dfiorminpcl ar:<:l certain and it will sweep ■ easily over fall argument and prejudices. It is eo in. America. It is ao in Great i Britain, where all the sporting ana athletic associations are getting with fine vigor into their new stride. One of the big British golfers' associations was organising a thanksgiving tournament when tho last" mail loft—qui to a novel efflorescence of tho sporting instinct. Tho world is pretty full of jobs tho soldiers do not want back. Ho revolts against tiie shabbygenteel, smothery, ill-paid callings. But the. | quieter the job lie takes the more active will ;be his pursuit of sport in hiff leisure. You , cannot keep a man fighting in the mouth \ of hell for four years and then expect him ' to fall hack on the dull round and flabby , diversions of a forgotten suburban baekh\ash. The soldier" will have his sport, 1 and the world will bo tho gayer and tho ; better for hi* determination to get it. So oven-thing thrives. The abnormal, appetite'for sprt may bo judged from the fact that the football gate last year sur- ; parsed that of the year the war. There is an extraordinary renaissance of interest in tennis. Bowls is still in tuo ; boom.—' Sunday Times' (Sydney).