The Hawera Star THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1925. PLAYERS AND SPECTATORS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 April 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1925. PLAYERS AND SPECTATORS

r)olivc-rort every evening by 5 e'elnek Unworn, Manaia, Nnrmanhy, Okninwn, Kit ham, Mnngnlnki, Kapongn. Alton, Hurleyvillo, Paten, Wuverley, Mokoia, \V links Inara, Ohangai. -Meremere, Fraser Hoad, and Ararata.

An American gentleman With a- kink for statistics calculated recently that the United States spends well over a billion dollansr a- year on sports. As this is estimated to be more than is spent by all the other countries of the world combined, the American chest swelled visibly at the 'announcement. Here- was a sort of dha-mpion of champions title to add to the national list. Then someone spoiled the whole- thing by callously pointing out that practically all of this huge expenditure goes to pay for watching other people play. Not content with that, tliis spoil-sport “ruibbed in the dirt” by adding that the people- of the British Elmpire- spend more on actual sport: that is, on -playing themselves, than do Americans, “whose national preference is to watch paid experts perform "in ‘various athletic lines.”. One Paul MacDonald, whose name- -suggests athletic and vigorous .ancestry, observed that it would cost- Americans a- good deal less if, like Britishers, they played games rathf r than watched them. It may be that in this there is cause for a, little iustiliable nricle in. our British way of

doing things; but there is sufficient else to call! for a, closer examination of the whole position, as it--affects not the United States or Great Britain, but New Zealand. Games are as old as history. Organised, and —to be brutally blunt- —commercial Fed sport is a -product of the twentieth century. Two great driving forces underlie modern man’s fondness' • for play: the spirit of competition and the joy of physical fitness. The- desire to test one’s -strength, or speed, or power of endurance against the next' man has been present, probably, ever since man has walked on two legs; the realisation that there could be such a thing

ns want of * physical fitness came much later. Stalene-s, flabbiness, the tired feeling, are some of -the penalties exacted by civilisation. But those two forces operate in the- cause of sport to-day, the one spurring i youth to greater and still; greater efforts, flic other mildly reasoning with middle age. Practically without exception it Is the -struggle of youth to excel -which draws the crowds. The public is not particularly interested in the gentle exercise pursued by Smith, Brown and Robinson, in order that they may preserve more or less the regular contour of their figure in front. But Smith, Brown and Robinson juniors, in the field to play for play’s sake, and to win if win they can by fair means, will draw their hundreds and their thousands. 'Hie task of .-sorting out, -say, a football crowd, into its varied component parts is one too difficult to attempt. But. excluding the ladies, the two general

divisions may always be made: those who have beeni players, and those who have not. The tingle of an. an twin n evening and the sound of boot on ball will set the old football war-horse snorting for 'battle * again, and his right to a place on the touch-line or in the. .stand cannot be questioned. Perhaps it might be better for has health were he now and then to spend a Saturday in his garden; but- the habits of fitness formed in hits pi ay in g days will stand .him in good -stead through life. The second type of spectator—the know-all critic who has never been inside a jersey—constitutes, iso far as the young of the sjrecies are' concerned, something within measurable distance of a problem even in our own country. Winter after winter, there are too. many young men standing on the bank. Unless his daily work gives him tolerably strenuous exercise, in the open air, every man who would dispute the contention that be has fallen into the sere and yellow leaf ought, to find interest in. some out-of-doors hobby or sport. Strangely enough, in the country districts and smaller centres, where the percentage of the population, leading sedentary lives is so much smaller, there is usually a greater proportionate playing strength than in the cities, with, consequently, less: danger of any game becoming a spectacle rather, than a .sport. In the cities I that danger is apparent to-day, although with us have net'

leached the pass they have in America, perhaps because our population is only about one-ninetieth part of America's. However, making due allowance for the money required for the organisation and.’support of our leading amateur sports, it is a qnesTioh if the idea of the “gate” is. not sometimes allowed to bulk over-largely in New Zealand. The future of .the games them.selve,- and of the Dominion might he : hotter assured were n few more young, fellows added to the active list of players, and a few pounds less taken at the turnstiles.