Why Take Risks in Playing, Football?

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6992, 19 August 1929, Page 4

Why Take Risks in Playing, Football?

The following sound and com- ’ monsense article from the Sydney “Sportsman” is worthy of the attention of players in all codes of football: — As long as this old mud ball continues to revolve, football will he played, and men will be prepared to tcilto risks* But the trouble about a great number of our players is that they take unnecessary risks every week. Nobody has ever told them not to. The worst 'offender of all is the man who goes on to the field minus shinguards. No professional player would think of taking the field without shinguards. The English team, the Canadians, the Slavs, the New Zealand side, and even the Chinese all wore them when in Australia. Professional coaches had insisted upon them wearing guards. Campbell, whose brother was a pro. in Scotland, saw to it that his side donned them before every match. / How many really promising players have had all the steam knocked out of them by stopping a terrific kick from an opponent? Men who play for a living wear shinguards inside their stockings, and they would not wear them if they were so much bull.

Parkin told “Sportsman” last season that a certain Sydney player of wonderful promise wouldn’t go far if ho continued to play without guards, and let his stockings flop on his boots. Wo passed the "oil” on, but the new representative player knew best.

Then he caught a beauty on the shin, had a long spell, and failed to catch the boat to Blighty.

Shin Guards Essential

Trainers of teams should make it their business to inspect players before they go on the field and see they are properly dressed. How many players stop a football in a vulnerable spot, and get laid out because they are not protected? On wet days players are allowed to sit about at “lemons” in wet things, when a wide-awake trainer would have new sets of togs spread out with dry towels. And then come studs! Every week players are seen slipping and sliding all over the field as though they were climbing a slippery dip, and in nine cases out of ten they have no studs, or defective ones. M. A. Noble, Australia’s greatest cricket captain, has been known to send men off. the field to have their boots attended to, and if this is necessary in cricket, how much more important is it in football? Studs half worn through are almost as bad as none at ail. It is attention to these small details that spells success, and there should be an outfit for fixing players’ boots in every training room.