RECREATIONS AND OUR SOCIAL LIFE

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 15, 12 January 1934, Page 7

RECREATIONS AND OUR SOCIAL LIFE

Attention to the important and very proper place games are now assuming in our social life and their direct bearing on the healthfulness of both the body and mind of the members of the community has been drawn by the very successful New Year Tennis Tournament on the Kaikohe Club’s courts last week, and the Country Week Cricket Tournament in Auckland. To take a constitutional is a phrase denoting the taking of a walk purely and simply for health purposes, but any psychologist will tell you that, in order to obtain the fullest benefit from exercise of any kind there must be some object in view apart from the mere functioning of the muscles. A case in point is that of the sportsman tramping over miles of rough country with little apparent fatigue. Outdoor games like cricket and tennis and bowls combine all the essentials for health giving amusement, and are especially necessary for those who follow sedentary occupations. Some forms of sport are limited to comparatively few. Take football for example. Only young and physically fit males can with safety indulge in this strenuous game. Middle-age may claim many a skilful batsman, but pace and “wind” are wanting in the “runs,” though he may outlast his brother of the “leather” by many years. Another drawback in the case of these team games is the difficulty of getting all the members together for practice ; this is an especial drawback in the country, where many of the team are engaged in farm work and, living scattered over a large area, have to travel long distances to the playing or practice field.

But in the two games, tennis and golf, that have become so popular in the last few years most of the drawbacks that attach to other games are absent, and they have many attractions peculiar to themselves. In tennis two or four players can make a game, while the number of sets playing simultaneously is limited only by the number of available courts. In golf even one alone may make a pleasurable round. Besides this, both these sports allow a wide margin for age, and best of all it brings both sexes together. The weak and the strong can alike indulge in them with beneficial results, while they offer every facility for social intercourse.

In the three northern counties of Bay of Islands, Hokianga and Whangaroa a great impetus has been given to tennis by the competitions in connection with the “Grace” Cups Nos. 1 and 2, but it is felt a pity that Mangonui is not included in their scope, and to remedy this it is proposed out of the Grace Cup competition fund to procure a Cup to be played for by teams selected from Clubs in the four northern counties. If this proposal is given effect it will be a factor in promoting the growing community of interest in all branch-

es of social and business life that is fast developing between the four northern counties.