THE AMATEUR IN SPORT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 5 July 1928, Page 4

THE AMATEUR IN SPORT.

“The death of Sir George Howland Hill has taken from the counsels of Rugby football one of the leaders in th'at body of men to whom ,we owe it that ‘Rugger’ has its present place as an exemplar of all that is sportsmanlike,” says the London “Daily Telegraph.” “'lts immense popularity as a spectacle is, we 'believe, on the -whole I a force which makes' for righteousness. But if the ‘Rugger .crowd’ is .now notable among crowd's for good sense and good’ feeling it is because the policy of the elder Statesmen of the Rugby Union determined that ‘Rugger’ should be preserved as a game to be played for the sake of the game in which there was no room for the paid expert. More than 50 years ago a number of London and 'suburban clubs -which practised football according to the laws 'of Rugby School, established the Rugby Union. By 1873 nearly 400 clubs were on its books, and this number did not include all that obeyed its regulations. In the autumn of that year the Yorkshire Committee submitted a resolution ‘that players be allowed compensation for bona-fide loss of time.’ W. Cail, who was president, and Rowland 'Hill, who was secretary, replied by moving that this principle Was ‘contrary to the true interest of the, game and its spirit.’ They carried it by about two to one. They went on to make new laws against professionalism. 'The ultimate consequence Was that in the nineties a number* of clubs in Yorkshire and Lancashire broke away and established .the professional game of the Northern Union. "There followed a decade of gloom. But in a. season which has seen the English fifteen win five international victories, which finds the number of players of Rugby in England, boys and men, greater than ever before, we 'shall hardly deny their wisdom. It is no exaggeration to say that English national life would have been much poorer if ‘Rugger’ had been left to develop into a display of professional expertise. Let us honour those who kept it a manly game.”