AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12527, 17 August 1926, Page 11

AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN

OBJECTS TO CLEM HILL THREEFOLD JOB CREATES TROUBLE. The following is by special cable from 3. G. Bridges, “Smith's” correspondent with the team— Clem Hill occupies a peculiar position this tour, playing three parts. He is a member of the Board of Control, one of the selectors of the team, and a journalist! An ordinary man would find it difficult to steer a safe course between them, but not so Hill. After helping »?leo* the Australian team he accepted offers to become their critio for Australian and English newspapers. Questions were raised immediately as to whether he was acting within his rights as a member of the Hoard of Control, which debars members of the team from writing for the Press. It was suggested that in any event he was displaying questionable taste in doing so. Anyway, Hill came to England, not as a member of the board, but as a pressman. As such he Joined “The noble band of British journalists,” as Syd. Smith describes the new Press team. ONE IN, ALL IN The Board of Control made strict rules in regard to pressmen, the most important being one which debars them from entering the dressing-room of the players. The Australian journalists, wondering whether the rule would apply to all pressmen, questioned Mr Smith early in the tour on the subject. He replied that the rule would be rigidly carried out, and that not even Hill, a member of the Board of Control, would be excepted. Nevertheless, it was not very long before we had the improper and annoying spectacle of Hill reporting a Test match from the Australians’ dressing-room. Some of the players were most bitter about it. Hill is not exactly popular with many of them, and more than that, they regard him as a pressman who should have respected the rule made by the board of which he is a member. “It is not cricket,” remarked one player. The other pressmen, realising that the rule had gone by the board, now enter the dressing-rooms unchallenged, hut they do not report Test matches from them. It will he up to the hoard to make more rules before the next tour.