SERIOUS SPORTSMEN

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 133, 8 June 1935, Page 11

SERIOUS SPORTSMEN

MEW Zealanders have been accused o£ taking sport too seriously, iN of always wanting to win, and being very dour about it. There has been "round for that accusation, particularly in regard to Ail Black Rugby football, which, since 1905, rightly or wrongly, has assumed a reputation for invincibility. But there is a definite change manifesting itself in this country in its outlook towards sports, and the old query of “wlio won?” is steadily being replaced by “how did they play?” Building up a belief that a side cannot be beaten is primarily responsible for an atmosphere of dogged determination when that team takes the field and for lame searching for excuses if it fails to win. Remove any thought of invincibility, and test the players purely from the standpoint of the game itself, and the whole outlook changes. That is what is taking place in this country at present, and it is being brought about by more people playing and less people looking on. Golf in -winter, tennis and bowling in summer, have broadened the field to which active sport makes appeal. Aided by faster means of transport and improved facilities, New Zealand’s actual participants in sport have increased out of all proportion. Instead of the highways and by-ways of this country boasting a set of Rugby goal posts at every important bend, they can now point to goil courses, to bowling greens, to tennis courts. Rowing is making wider appeal, Badminton is claiming attention; miniature rifle shooting is on the up-grade; hockey is improving; greyhound racing is just round the comer; trotting is rising in popularity; wrestling has come to stay and there are brighter prospects for boxing, and amateur athletics.

It was inevitable that such widening of scope would make inroads on the fewer types of game practised in the past. Rugby has suffered by the call to golf; cricket has suffered as the result of tennis and bowling becoming more popular. Bowling, at one time, was an old man’s game. To-day age has little bearing on who play and who look on; but the important fact is clear there aie more people playing and less “on the bank. ,f> That is all the better, for the change has resulted in sport teaching its lessons to a far more intimate multitude. So many people play, and, because they play, they realise that the game is the real factor after all, and when the game becomes the real factor, New Zealanders are prone to look at it in a spirit of brightness, rather than of gloom. "W e may still take the game seriously, try hard to win, but by more of us actually playing, we have a better understanding of the other fellow s ability and what playing against him really means —a better world, not a won or lost Rugby Crown