HOCKEY IN WAIRARAPA

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11772, 7 March 1924, Page 10

HOCKEY IN WAIRARAPA

SPLENDID PROSPECTS FOR 1924. (To the Editor "N.Z. Times.") Sir,—Under the headings "Country Sport. Wairarapa Prospects. Plight of Hockey" your "special correspondent" paints a dismal picture of the decline and decay of the once popular stick game. The whole story is absolutely a reversal of the facts. Hockey is dying, according to your misinformed correspondent. Here are the facts for the three seasons that ! have played: 1921, Five senior teams in the competition; 1922, five senior teams in the competition, representative team won the Nordon Cup and held it, finally losing it to Poverty Bay; 1923, five senior teams and five junior teams in the competition. Junior representative team played matches against Wellington third grade team, securing a draw and a win. Prospects for 1924 are seven senior teams and eight junior teams in the competition, and every possibility of a revival of school hockey. •*. As to the standard of play, it is perhaps unnecessary for me to comment on this assertion, as the record of the New Zealand team in Australia and Wairarapa's record against Wellington, and the fact that two of our members played in the North Island representative team, is .sufficient indication of our standard. Your correspondent states that "many erstwhile hockey players last year joined the rafiks of the Soccer enthusiasts/' I will defy your correspondent to name more than three so-called hockey players who have joined the Soccer ranks, and out of the three I will name two of them that rejoined the stick game before the season finished last year. Soccer is being played only in the town of Masterton, not the WairSrapa. It appears to me that your special correspondent got his hockey news from the Rugby followers, and I ask you to publish this letter in justice to the Wairarapa Hookey Association, and it is easy for you to satisfy yourself as to my bona tides. W. IX .SEXTON, Captain and Manager of the Wairarapa Representative Hockey Team, 1923.