WINTER SPORTS OPEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20241, 29 April 1929, Page 12

WINTER SPORTS OPEN.

FIRST FOOTBALL GAMES,

SUMMER SEASON ENDS.

NEW ATHLETIC SPIRIT.

Winter sports replaced summer games in Auckland on Saturday, when football and hockey players in their hundreds took possession of city and suburban grounds which for several months have been used by cricketers. The new season may now be said to be in full swing. If there is sentiment to be found in the passing of a season—and poets incline to the belief there is—the hundreds who thronged the city and suburban grounds on Saturday for the opening of the football season certainly did not allow it to overshadow their games. Although autumn might feel aggrieved that the colder season is already passing it in the race to the end of the year, it still can command a small following of summer sport. The wearing of flannels has been prolonged in face of falling foliage and a weakening sun. There are still a few who play tennis on grass courts and even one or two friendly cricket matches are in progress.

In spite of this winter has thrown the football into the arena and there has been no lack of players to snatch it up and run, as it were, iron the very spot where rivalries of a past season faded and died for a while. Thus on Saturday spiked boots of a different kind raced over a crisper turf where but a short while before more leisurely figures batted or bowled under the last vestigo of a summer sky. Typical weather greeted tho footballers and those whose playing days are over but who still wage battles each week from bank or stand. There was more of a chill in the air than is usually to be found on the first day of the season, Overcoats spoke eloquently of the arrival of a new atmosphere on grounds where cricket pitches are already trodden out of recognition by the boots of a new, uncaring sporting sect.

Strangely enough there is no sorrow to be found when autumn rings down the curtain on summer play. It is the same when goalposts are torn up to make room for wickets. The player is fickle when the seasons demand the transfer of his athletic affections. No matter how heated his enthusiasm or how keen his interest, he turns with a glad heart to the games of a new season.

Tho triumphs of summer are forgotten in the anticipations of winter's contests. So the player turns with scarce a regret from tho bat to the ball. The fires of a previous season's rivalries are of a sudden relit to cast a warm glow on perennial hopes.