RUGBY FOOTBALL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 18 June 1932, Page 3

RUGBY FOOTBALL

WHEN HE IS DROPPED PLAYER WRITES OF HIS FEELINGS GREATOREX CONFESSES J have given up football. That is just tit for tat, for it seems that football has given me lip. I have been dropped from first-grade football. It was a severe shock to learn a few days ago that I had been omitted from the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Union team to play Manly to-day. Candidly, it was hard to take, writes E. N. Greatorex, the “Waratah” of 11)27-28, in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” Of course, I. knew that it had to come sooner or later, but that did not help to lighten the blow. No man. I don’t care who lie is, or what sport he plays, likes to leant that he is not’ good enough. And that is what it amounts to. For a man who has had tlie good fortune to reach the top rung the blow is even more severe. It means more than just giving up a game. It means that a big interest in life is ended.

It means an end to the glamour and thrills which only the player can get from a hard-fought game, and it means that you are on the down grade. I speak" of ev,cry player who knows that his best days are over. At twenty-eight years of age I should still have some years of football before me. Perhaps I have not quite struck form—it helps somewhat to think along those lines. Perhaps I could get back into the team. Perhaps the play has not gone my way this season. Perhaps—but at heart, I know that I have lost the dash and the stamina and the keenness of other years. The writing is on the wall, and there is nothing left but to accept the verdict of the selectors. It comes to us all. It is no use complaining. It is just that wo refuse to believe that we will be dropped. HOLDING ON Those who have hung on to the bitter end will understand. It hurts to have to give up. You play because you like the game and everything that goes with it. You try to persuade yourself against your better judgment that you are as good as the next man. At the last “Waratah” dinner “Ted” Thorn, that great player of a few years ago, gave a warning to the old hands. “Get out before you’re kicked out” said “Ted.” ' . We smiled. “We won’t he kicked out,” we thought. “Ted” knew. He “got out” when lie was at the height of his fame. Other wise men have done the same.

“Larry” Wogan “got out” when lie was playing representative football. They said that Wogan would have reached greater heights. “Larry” is the only man who knows about that. And ho did not retire because he was tired of the game. Not everybody can do it. Even though you know that you are slowing up; that you don’t get up from a tackle so quickly as you did; that you are waiting for the ball to come to you instead of going after it—you play on. For one man who has retired when ho has been at his top there are a dozen who have hung on. Look down the names of players in second and third grade teams. You will find among them men who were once stars; players who in their day were draw cards. The youngsters say: “Why don’t the old fellows get out and give us a chance?” But the youngsters don’t know —yet. LEAVING THE TEAM Of course, I can join the veterans now. I can criticise the play of others, and say that they don’t produce the footballers they used to, and tell entirely uninterested spectators what I would have done.

Friends tell you that you have had a “fair spin.” They say that you might as well retire because there is nothing else to get out of the game. But they don’t understand. They don’t know wliat it is to look on and see the side you once played with take the field. Ask the old-timers how it feels. I know some veterans who cannot look on. But it has been well worth while. (The friendships and the memories of ten years of first-grade football remain. One can recall the purple patches—the thrill of first being selected to play for a club; of being picked for your State; of lining up for tlie first time with fourteen other men wearing the light blue jersey; of walking on the ,famous Twickenham ground (the dream of every Union footballer) to the cheers of 00,000 spectators; of mighty tussles against the All Blacks; of racing over for a try, and the proud moment of a premiership victory. All these remain. But I wish I could begin again.