MAKING OF FOOTBALLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20426, 30 November 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAKING OF FOOTBALLS.

GENERATIONS OF CRAFTSMEN

TONBRIDGE'S GROWING TRADE.

The post-office of Kent, might eaiiilv have been mistaken a feuweeks ago for the despatch department of a fruil. store with the' melon season in full swing.. Mountains of melon-shaped parcels were stacked on the floors and the counters, but the contents of thesd spherical packages were not melons, but footballs, nice new spotless footballs, ready with the most blameless impartiality to score goals alike for Sheffield United or Tottenham Hotspur, or some humble village team. For Tor.bridge is the town where many of the footballs which will be kicked; to victory by one side or another are, v solo speak,. born. Ilere, in a quaint, oldfashioned building, beside the quiet waters of the Medway, they have been made by generations of skilled craftsmen. " Footballs have been made hem since 176(1—that's 169 years," the foreman of the factory told the writer. " Every year the trade is growing. Last- year wo sent more than five thousand footballs overseas alone. They go to Australia, New Zealand,' Canada sfnd the Unite:l States, and we send' ties of the Rugger shape to South Africa. : All the summer we have been ii3rol at work repairing footballs for the clubs and schools, large and small, all "over the country. Now we are busy with hockey orders for girl's schools, and with huge consignments of cricket • balls for Australia."

This is 0110 of -those okl-establishe.fi firms where inherited aptitude for the work is an important factor. One of tlio niOst skilled workers is a man whose great-grandfather was apprenticed to the business in the year of its foundation. This ancestor put his sous into the trade, and their descendants have continued, in it up to ihe present- day.