FOOTBALL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16678, 10 October 1914, Page 13

FOOTBALL.

EFFECTS OF THE WAR. The Association football season draws noarer. The practice matches have already begun. It lias now been decided that the game shall take its usual course when the season opens on September 1. There is nothing at the present moment to suggest that this will not be possible. Tho train sorices aro normal, and clubs will not have serious difficulty in travelling away from home. Some peoplo think it is not at all certain how the general public will view the matches, and whether they will support them. The practice games have certainly not provided much encouragement. There were only 6000 people present at Stamford Bridge when the Chelsea Players made their debut for the season. As there were several new men appearing who have had great reputations, a much bigger attendance was expected. In ordinary times, indeed, there would probably have been a “gate” four or five times bigger, hut I do not imagine that the Association football public will stay away from the matches when the season starts merely because the country is at war. Their instinct is much sounder than that of the anasmic souls who have been writing to the papers in pious protest against “ people playing games” in these troublous times. That is not the spirit that has built up the fame of England and written our rough island story. To hear some of these peoplo talk, you would imagine that England had never been at war before —and generally against the odds, too. The people who are croaking and wringing their hands now are the same people who have so much to say in ordinary times about brutalising sports and heaven knows what else.

Hitherto tho receipts from these beginning-of-the-season matches have always been devoted to some .charity. This year the Football Association lias decided to hand the money over, to the Prince of Wales’s Relief Fund. Altogether this should henefit to the extent of at least. £IO.OOO. So far none of tho professional clubs’ grounds have been commandeered for military purposes like some of the cricket enclosures. and such a thing is not at all likely to happen. I understand it is the wish of the authorities that Association football should go on as usual in order to preserve, as far as possible, a cheerful tone throughout the country and take the mind of the people off the war. Men in khaki in this country will, so far as possible, be

encouraged to take an interest in football, and those abroad will still want to know how their two teams are doing. The situation is rather different in the matter of Rugby football. The amateur Rugby players do not begin the season until the end of September, and no definite decision as to their intentions has been announced. But the United Service teams are no more available, and the Harlequins state that they will probably be unable to raise a team. The trutn is that almost every Rugby player is either in the Services, or, if bo was not, there was no holding him back once there was a chance of having a smack at the Germans. The English Rugby Union is likely to follow the lead of the Scottish Union and leave the clubs to take their own course. The Scottish Union has made a contribution of £SOO to the National Relief Fund—which, know-

•'g the past history of that body in financial transactions, is eloquent of the depth to which Scotland has been stirredi They have also _ very patriotically offered to the military authorities the use of their famous ground at Inverleith.