Sports Topic— WANTED—A HALL

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1950, Page 3 (Supplement)

Sports Topic— WANTED—A HALL

Something of what the sportloving public of Greymouth is missing through the nori-replace-ment of its one-time indoor sports centre, the Town Hall, was shown at the tiny country settlement of Nelson Creek last Saturday night. With a hall which they can call their own, the people of Nelson . Creek are able to stage a sporting event, in the form of boxing, which can attract visitors from all parts of the district—something which the biggest town, in Westland cannot do. True, a dance hall in Cobden has been used to a limited extent for boxing at Greymouth. and a motioil picture theatre has been secured for the national boxing tournament at Greymouth in September. But these, at best, are merely substitutes. What Greymouth needs and, indeed, is entitled to, is a hall which can fill permanently the place of the old Town Hall. — A building which can become the headquarters for boxing, wrestling and demonstrations of other indoor sports. At one time the Greymouth Boxing Association was the most progressive body of its type in the Dominion. Later still it was in the forefront of associations seeking matches with the leading overseas wrestlers visiting the Dominion. Today, it has no chance of reaching a similar position while there is no hall in Greymouth capable of accommodating a crowd of the size necessary to make such ventures a payable proposition. While the Boxing and Wrestling Association languishes, the sporting public is deprived of the opportunity of enjoying sports which are commonplace in every other town of a comparable size in the Dominion. It is a position which was tolerable in the upsets of the immediate post-war years, but it is rapidly becoming intolerable. There appears to be very little chance of Greymouth obtaining an adequate civic hall in the foreseeable future and the time is ripe for private enterprise to consider the possibilities of a commercial venture. In the final analysis, it would be a matter for accountants, but it does appear that the construction of a hall suitable for indoor sports, and other entertainments with removeable seating which would make it available for dancing and indoor games, could be made a payable proposition in a town the size of Greymouth.