ARMY ATHLETICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23595, 2 March 1940, Page 8

ARMY ATHLETICS

ESSENTIA! ELEMENT.' M • • —— s GREAT WAR MEMORIES % [FOOTBALL EGYPT Essential to tlie well-being of civilian youth, athletic sport is doubly so in the Army. It gives a finish to the phy. sieal training of the curriculum, especially in recruit days, it agreeably fi]! s hours of leisure, it cultivates the spirit of camaraderie between man and man and the ranks and the commissioned ranks, it stimulates esprit de corps <tnd it has a remarkable tonic effect upon troops resting from the front line or recovering from the physical and mental strain of battle.

All field athletics have their vahie but more than team games are necessary in every unit, seeing that they inevitably produce more spectators than players. It is the aim of commanding officers to make every individual an active participant in one strenuous sport or another. The Value of Boxing A former officer of a Highland regiment yesterday extolled boxing as one of the.best army sports. "In our battalion," he said, 4 'it was compulsory. In the day by day boxing men were not allowed to choose their own sparring partners, though sparring is hardly the term, for everyone was expected to put a good deal of ginger into it. It was several rounds of 'proper scrap' for everyone.

"Besides hardening up the men it had another purpose with us. as an officer from another regiment discovered. 'How is it,' he asked, 'that you always have such a good lot of noncommissioned officers.' -By watching how men shape in the boxing riing,' I told him. In this tough school a man may not show a great deal of science but he soon reveals what sort of fighting spirit he possesses. You can see whether his mind works fast or slow and it is not hard for an experienced soldier to sum up an individual and judge what his qualities of leadership as an n.c.o. are likely to be." t General Wavell a Boxer This officer mentioned the interesting fact that Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Wavell, commander of the British Forces in the Middle East, was a prominent boxer when he served with the Black Watch and won an Army middleweight championship. A senior officer of the New Zealand Staff Corps had two professional boxers, both privates, in the unit to which he was attached in 1914. On the transport or in Egypt he asked one of them if he would give him some boxing tuition in the mornings. The soldier said he would be pleased to do so, but later came back and said that his brother professional would be the instructor. "He is a boxer," he said, "and will be able to teach you something. I am only a fighter really, and may knock you about too much." And in that little incident there is more than the story of a young officer's efforts to keep fit.

A former trooper of the Auckland Mounted Rifles recalls the scratch football games the men of the Main Body played here and there. They tried a game on the desert sand at Zeitoun but only one. Although they wore riding pants —no athletic equipment was supplied in those day,s they finished with grazed knees and as they left, the patch of sand they called a field, thev presented a picture more like that of a troop of their .unit., after a few weeks on Gallipoli. Rugby in Cairo However, there was good football between New Zealanders and such units as the Honourable Artillery Company and the Westminster Dragoons on the ground of the Egyptian State Railways Institute in Cairo. Inoculations use 3 to be done on Fridays, but there was a sporting doctor in one unit who gave the members of the football team only the dab of iodine and not the needle, so that they could acquit themselves well on Saturday. : The members of the team got their inoculations in a private sort of way on Saturday evening. . An old Digger recalls football matches at Fleur Baix, where the players wore as jerseys corn sacks with holes for arms and head and cut to size. Once the teams were taken across the canal in punts to save them a long walk to the football ground. When the game was over the punts had gone. So to again save the walk the players swam back. Fifty yards of water in December was not a bad effort after a game. However, the good comrade was on the bank with great coats and rum. When asked where he got the rum he curtly replied: "No names, no pack drill." • The inevitable cynic said the vigour of the game was not because the men were at the peak of form, but because a football knee sras the best "buckshee?' that could be picked up in France.