AUSTRALIANS RETURN

Evening Star, Issue 23124, 25 November 1938, Page 4

AUSTRALIANS RETURN

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE The sporting editor of the ‘ Sunday Sun ’ (Sydney) writes entertainingly concerning the return of the Australians from their English tour. In view of the talk about the strenuous worn of the tour, the excuses for failures, and the resentment of criticism, the side of the picture put forward by that writer is interesting. “ I/have seen about town during the last tew days,” he says, “ some of the Sydney members of the Australian cricket side just back from the tour of England. “ Nearly all of them have a slightly puzzled look just at present, as if they don’t quite know where they are. You can understand how they feel about things. It will be a week or two before they actually come down to earth and realise that one of the finest sis months’ holidays it is possible to imagine has ended and that there is work to be done. “ They have been the guests at fine English homes; they have eaten game and poultry and pate de foie gras and caviare as you or I might eat roast beef or roast iqutton. “ They have had pleasures and experiences abroad that no money could buy. They have wined and dined .with people the average individual could never hope to meet; they have travelled in state without the worries of arranging for luggage to be handled; the problems of passports have meant nothing to them—when they went to Leeds or Nottingham or Brighton or Dublin all they had to do was to walk straight into a room of a first-class hotel to find their cabin trunks and cases waiting for them. A DREAM LIFE. “They have played golf by invitation on most of England's best courses ; they have been to the best shows iu Loudon as the guests of the management; they have had entree to famous clubs and cabarets—in brief, for sis mouths they have led the kind of iifo most people dream about—knowing that their dreams will never come true. “ Certainly, between times, they had to play cricket, but there are harder things in life than playing cricket.—even if you are on the field day after day while a batsman of the opposing side makes a world’s record number of runs for a test and his team masses a total dose to the 1,000 mark. “ And now it is all over. For some of them the trip may never come again. All good things come to an end, as men like Bill O’Reilly, Jack Fingleton, Stan. M'Cabe, Arthur Chipperficld, Ted White, and Sid. Barnes are now realising. For O’Reilly Fingleton, M.’Cabe, and Chipperfieid the experience is not new. They have travelled abroad with cricket teams before. But I’ll wager that it will be '. some weeks before they have really settled down to business. • ' ’ “ Fingleton goes back to journalism, O’Reilly to school' teaching, M'Cabe to selling sporting goods, ’ Chipperfieid and White to their office * jobs. Sid. Barnes, I understand, is seeking some worth-while job. He is eager and ambitious, and should sueceed iu business. . “ . . . A'few months ago these men % ate from gold plates as guests of the Lord Mayor .of London. To-day they : eat from china plates—even as von and 1. . ” . , “ Thev may feel the strain for a little while, but we can’t feel sorry for them, can we?”