PROFESSIONAL SOCCER.

Grey River Argus, 15 December 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

PROFESSIONAL SOCCER.

GRAFT IN GETTING PLAYERS, j TRANSFER FEE OF £lO,OOO. < ATTACKS BY ENGLISH PLAYERS Professional soccer in England is un dergoing rather trying times. In the scramble for players League clubs, it is said, are killing the sport by offering inducements to players of other clubs to forsake their old love for the new. The Daily Mail, which has wrecked Governments, is now launch ing attack after attack on those who control the clubs. Personally, I think the Daily Mail’s attack is many years too late, and I am inclined to regard it more as a circulation raising stunt than an effort to cleanse the game, which, after all. is not quite so bad as the paper would have us believe. Further, unless the Daily Mail can prove there has been actual bribery and corruption among players to fix matches, I do not think it mod look to the average soccer enthusiast to lose faith with the game. Supporters of English soccer do not care “tuppence” what the directors do behind the scenes so long as they get players. All they care about is that the players should give of their best. Incidentally the Daily Mail makes no attack upon the honesty of the players, and for this reason, I cannot see any serious harm being done to the game. That things are done behind the scenes that are against the rules of the game is no On the whole, however I think the game is honestly controlled, which fact seems to be indicated in the round-about manner in which the Daily Mail has made its attacks. The paper has based its comment upon generalities and has not instanced a single case upon which the Football Association could act. It has assumed much, but told us very little; in fact, what the Daily Mail has revealed is old news.

The Sunday Dispatch, another Roth- | erm ere organ, is. however, creating a j certain uneasiness by threatening to reveal a secret which may implicate quite a few clubs and well-known players. The medium of these “promis ed revelations” is a famous George Hunter, who made his name with Aston Villa, and who also served suer well known clubs as Chelsea. Manche? ter United and Oldham. In an advance notification as to what the Sunday Dispatch has promised to tell us Hunter laconically says:— La--- Jank Balance. “When my fotball career was cut short I had a bank balance cf £5OOO Will anyone in his senses believe that 1 could have saved such a sum simple out of a professional footballer’s plav ing wage of £1 per week.” From this you will no doubt gather what is coming. In my next article 1 shall be in a position to .leal with the promised revelations. I. the meantime the .Sunday Dispatch is working up a These revelations wil be recognised propaganda by telling its many readers as the most amazing document in th • annals of sport. They demolish once and for all the position of those win maintain that the money evil is not a menace to the game. ‘‘With the utmost frankness Hunter will dereribo the temptations that eame is nay, and he does not attempt to disguise the fact that he took full ad vantage of them. ‘‘The mysterious subterranean sources, from which a great plivcr car draw up to £lOO wh. never he’wanis are revealed. And the disclosures wilastound the followers of the game.” Recoid Transfer Fee. Woolwich Arsenal has broken all re cords in paying a transf. r f. p of £lO.000 for D. B. N. Jack, of Bolton. Whither any player is worth this sum. or even half of it, is a matter of opinion, but if the new recruit .-an convert the Londoners into a winning team then it will have L< en money well “pent. The Arsenal is a bad side, and it hag (Hily to continue as it is doing to drop into the second division The directors, knowing this. hope therefore, to expen. 1 £lO.OOO in the hope that the ex-Wanderer will save the club from relegation. If he succeeds in so doing then the £lO,OOO will be a very sound investment. From what I have seen of Jack I would not say he is a great plaver in the true sense of the word, and wen T to compare him with some of the giants of the past then I should be in "lined to say if Jack is worth £lO 000, then such men as Alec Raisbeck, Steve Bloomer. Bobbie Walker. Janies Quiun ami Bobbie Templeton would to-day have brought, anything fnmi £20.000 to £30.000 each. Forced on Open Market. The fact of the Arsenal “buying” Jack means that those chibs keeping the Londoners. company at the foot" of the League table will also be forced to go on to the open market, for player, st and it is just possible that Bolton”