FOOTBALL ON SUNDAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20930, 21 July 1931, Page 10

FOOTBALL ON SUNDAYS.

DENUNCIATION BY MINISTER. GAMES AT TE .KUITL [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] V TE KUITL Monday. An after-church meeting was held in a picture theatre last evening, when the Rev. W. Sussex, of the Methodist Church, spoke on Sunday football. "I am here to-night in response to a challenge from those responsible for the conduct of organised Sunday football, to the effect that I sought the shelter of my pulpit to make an attack. I will now proceed to attack it from this public platform," declared Mi\ Sussex. After a noisy element had been checked by the police the speaker received a fair and orderly hearing. Public interest had been aroused, said Mr. Sussex, by a recent Sunday football match, between railway teams, which he had criticised from the pulpit. Those remarks had been defiantly challenged by a subsequent Sunday match between the Otorobanga and Te Kuiti Druids. Mr. Sussex: I declare ifc a defiant act and, a disgrace to the Order of Druids to be responsible for such a scene on a railway reserve in the centre of the town, within 500 yds. of the public hospital and a Sabbath School where religious instruction was proceeding. The Rev. G. L Laurenson, also of the Methodist Church, supported the case for Sunday observance, • appealing as a young man and a footballer to the finer and nobler feelings of footballers.