ROUGH FOOTBALL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 October 1924, Page 8

ROUGH FOOTBALL.

HIGH FEELING. AT A SOCCER'MATCH ‘ ‘RIOT DEVELOPING RAPIDLY.” CHRISTCHURCH, Oet. 9. One man was carried off, one man was left, lying on the ground, the first man was admitted to the hospital, but the second was not hurt very much; these results had been achieved, and players and spectators were beginning to “mix it” freely when the Sunny-side-Western match at Sunnyside was called off yesterday afternoon. Had the match not been called off when it was, the football ground would have staged possibly an historic battle. The game was virtually the final of the Canterbury Football Association’s league competition. Sunnyside and Western had met on two previous occasions tin's season. The first match ended in a draw, Western being unlucky in that one of its players was in the act of kicking a goal jiist as the final whistle sounded. In soccer the match stops as soon as time is up, not when the ball goes out of play. Owing to bad weather the second match was abandoned after 30 minutes’ play with Western leading by one goal to nil. Yesterday Sunnyside had to beat Western to win the league competition. The game was started at 4.45 p.m., as some of the Western players were unable to leave their work earlier. For about four minutes there was an exhibition of fast, solid football with no “incidents” so far as the players were concerned, and Western -was leading by one goal t nil. Then the trouble began. The number of spectator's-had increased and feeling was running high. Once it had called forth a remonstrance from the referee (Mr. Donald Sutherland). A Sunnyside player who was playing his first game for the team received a kick in the stomach, and while he was being attended to two other players showed lively indications of staging an impression of the second meeting of Dempsey and Firpo. The referee left the injured man to separate them, and from then on al] was uproar. .According to the Sun’s description of the game, spectators rushed the ground yelling at players. Everybody was in a state of high excitement and some of the spectators were beginning to “mix it.” Both captains and the referee endeavoured to restore order, but a riot was developing rapidly when the referee declared the game off. That was the only thing he could do. Had the game continued it would have made history and probably much work for the. hospital. From the excited talking over of events that occurred after wards 4 it appears that the Sunnyside captain remonstrated with the ’Western captain for some infringement of the rules and an ex-Sunnvside player, who now plays for Western, threatened the Sunnyside leader. Coming as it does at the end of a really good season, the incident is most unfortunate, especially as some of the spectators who were making a good deal of noise arc men well known in soccer circles.