SPORTSMANSHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19486, 16 November 1926, Page 9

SPORTSMANSHIP.

To be a " good loser " is to win more respect and genuine liking than to carry off all the honours of the tennis court, golf course and bridge table. The true sportswoman lias the instinctof fairness and justice. The winner—she is modest and free from " swank "; the loser—she commiserates with her partner, and offers ready congratulations to her successful rivals. It is a pity that success and triumph turn the heads of some more temperamental girls when they play games. It is not good sportsmanship, if you are not playing quite up to your usual form, and have lost a set at tennis, to refuse to play a return set because you " aren't feeling like it"; to put the blamo on anybody and everything but yourself for bad luck in a "foursome," or to hold acrimonious " post-mortems " after every game of bridge. To claim the full advantages of rigid rules through the unconscious mistakes df opponents 111 friendly games, and to lose your temper with a partner who is not so expert as yotiirfeelf,' shows a sad lack of the sporting spirit.Questioning the decision of an umpire, or accepting it with a bad grace, is ih the same category. But it is not only in games that sportsmanship. acts a part. The instinct aroused on tennis court and golf course should become part and personality .of everyday life. . Jn these days It is a* little inconsistent, to say the least, to tell a man that' you are fully capable of doing his job and earning his salary at one moment, and the next to demand that jhe readily relinquishes his seat in your favonr in the crowded tube, just because you happen to be of the opposite sex.