NATIONAL GAMES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 January 1925, Page 6

NATIONAL GAMES.

RUGBY AND TENNIS. (Waikato Times.) By some quirk of late, Rugby football has become our national game. Presumably every New Zealander understands its fine points, has sufficient knowledge any wav' to talk the language and blame the releree. It is difficult for' a people subjected in its boyhood to a strenuous initiation into the mysteries of the game on a handy vacant section, or within the narrow area of somebody's backyard, to realise that there are vast masses of white people, quite intelligent folk for the most part, who know as much about Rugby as the average man knows about the theory of- relativity. After all it is only a very limited portion of the sport-loving public in England tliat cares two straws'whether New Zealand players win or lose. To us the matter is of supreme importance, more vital than social reform, or the price of wool, or why the wharf collapsed, or the prospects of the next election. It seems incredible -to us that a London paper should criticise the New Zealand team in phrases that indicate an abysmal ignorance of the first principles of the game. Evidently there was no Rugby man on their staff j so they compromised by sending along their croquet expert as the next best thing. And he duly reported on the game according to the' croquet canons. You and I would probably make an even bigger mess of it if we were assigned to a baseball match, or a bull-fight, say.

INTERNATIONAL GAMES. Some games, hut only a few, can he called truly international. Usually there is a clearly marked Mnsou-Dixon line. So, many, nations, so many national games. National character seems tc express itself in sport on entirely different lilies. One would expect that, though lines. One would expect that; though it is not easy to determine the reasons that led to' any particular selection.

Probably circumstances make (the selection for us, and a country by merest chance finds itself in possession of a game whose honour it will uphold against all-comers as the only sport fit for a national people. Tennis and golf justly deserve the title international. No doubt much credit for their popularity is due to their inherent merits; hut it is signi- ; ficant that in an age of athletic womanhood, .they are the only games of a vigorous type in which men and women can play together. Besides that, they are both games in which middleage* has a chance. Robustious youth' no longer holds the centre of the field ; a man can enjoy his golf and in a

j measure his tenuis, when his youth is only the dimmest' of memories hack in the years. Small wonder that go'll and tenuis are the two most popular games in the world to-day. Everything points to further development on the same lines. And for the most part their popularity is a fine augury for’ the future. Neither is spectacular, except to the initiated : neither will draw the crowd; there will, always Ire more people playing the game than idly gazing while others do the work. The crowd | makes football, a paying concern, no doubt; hut it is a humiliating and even tragic thing when the bulk ol a population takes its physical, exercise by proxy.

TEAM SPIRIT. . ’ The only trouble with tennis and golf is the diminishing of the team spirit in both. The social value of team games, each player one of fifteen or one of eleven, cannot he overestimated. The game of one against one,, or two against two, tends to a mental and moral, isolation and self-centredness. But wo can’t have everything. And tennis and golf have enough in their favour to make it almost certain that they will ho the international games in the future, even more than they arc today. - Vet one never knows. Golf is an ancient game, its origin lost in the mists of antiquity. "When it appears in history the .Scots are in possession. But whether they invented it, or appropriated it. after their fashion from the guileless inventors of it, it is impossible now to ascertain. It is only the last decades that have given golf wings; it was«n "stay-at-home bird by instinct, but now it ranges freely under every sky.

Lawn tennis is a modern game. It originated some 50 years ago, apparently an inspiration from the void. The discoverer or inventor has probably done more lor human happiness pud health than’-any other man of our times. l Real tennis, of course, is as old as the hiljs. The Dauphin sent tennis" balls to Prince Hal as a friendly suggestion that a game of hall was about all lie. was good for; and much French blood flowed before the insult was wiped out. And our lathers played tennis within a couple of centuries of the. Norman Conquest. Lawn tennis in fifty years has become the universal game. There is no reason why even better games should not be devised for the. delectation of mankind. Here is the chance for the person of ideas. No man can influence his time more profoundly than the man that gives the world a new game; if it can embody the team spirit with all the advantages of lawn tennis, it will be a perfect game at last.