Truth THE FOOTBALL CRAZE.

NZ Truth, Issue 65, 15 September 1906, Page 4

Truth

THE FOOTBALL CRAZE.

PUBLISHED EVEBY SATURDAY MORNING at Luke's Lane (off mannersstreet), WE-LLINGTON, N.Zi SUBSCRIPTION (IN ADVANCE), 13S. PER ANNUM.

SATUEDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1906,

It is time New Zealand took' a pull at" herself m the matter •of football. It is a fine thine, and a matter for congratulations, that , our lads have proved themselves unquestionably the best exponents of Rugby football m the world ; for not only does it gratify that healthy national pride that it' is so desirable to nurture, but it gives proof that the race is a sound one, with the stamina; brawn, bone arid muscle that are such helpful factors m the battle of life. It is a noble game, a sport that above all others rouses the spirit of emulation, that is conducive to sobriety and selfrestraint m all things, that teaches a young . fellow the advantages of cohesion "and unity", 1 to govern his temper and restrain his tongue; l while for the development of the physical system there is nothing like it. The writer has been young and now he is old • and, at a period of its career m New Zealand— when it was fifty per cent, more dangerous a game to play than it is now, with its' finesse and swift disposing of the ball— he played for many seasons, throwing heart, brain, and body into the game —While it was m progress. So the suggestion of effeminacy will not lie. But m those days the whole community did not go mad over footittall. the whole people did not get swelled head and talk nothing but football, the young men did not get so "cocky" over themselves and their supremacy m the sport as to render them a nuisance and a menace on the streets, with their bumptious braggino- and bumping brutality towards their elders and betters, aye, even" to women, whom all true men love to cherish, protect and euard from rough usage m the crowded streets. .

They took their football as a healthy pastime, away back .m the seventies and eigthtie.s ; ; now it, is being made the chief; tidiness of existence, with about .half the community, and a craze with nearly the whole. It is a pest r an obsession, and the few who do not go off pop at ;the word "football" never feel exactly safe out of their own rooms. The travelling teams inajce a journey by boat or train frequently a misery to quiet ' people. These youths— or their apologists, not more than one m any fifteen would recognise the word— may call their conduct exuberance of spirits. What sufferers under it call it is plain blackguardly rowdyism, and that is just what it is. The bumptious young bounders look upon themselves as a privileged class, like the younr Roman nobles, and the English mohawks of a century, and less, aeo. They take by storm the hotels whose proprietors are foolish enough to undertake to cater for their huere appetites and submit to their uncouth jjhabits. The other regular or better paying; casual guests are inconvenienced, their privacy outraged, their nrivileges. usurped and their comfort destroyed by_ these itinerant bands of ball-hooters,' w ; ho also, when not wolfing or boozing weak shandies, block the footpaths outside and force peaceable/ useful citizens and all; women and children out -upon the roadway and into, danger from wheel traffic. They can't remember, these bie-booted boys, that they are not m the cow-yard or driving the dung cart. . The only time they do remember it is meal-time, when the absence of .salt old cow and pumpkin recalls their whereabouts, to the place where sensible peonle wear their brains; They keep the other quests awake all night by their .senseless, ceaseless jabber— all about fbdtball and girls— their uncouth calls to one another from different rooms, their slamming of doors and dashine; down of heavy hoof-cases and such delicate little gracefulnesses. At one hotel recently, m the room next to a sick woman and her worn-but-with-work-aml-w,orry husband, one of a college team barked his blastiferous i blather about kicks, goals and girls .from 10.45 p.m. till 1.30 a.m., while his room 'mate grunted hog-like assent to every shouted proposition. Then there was silence , and the weary listeners, who could hear every word fchrouerh the thin partition, dozed off at length. The tpspite, was brief. Just as the clorirs Ktrucir three the brayinf a*? >""■

op-nip :a.v<i. npver stormed ir»o,r<» thnn Jnn~ ppnufrli for l)js mj),tc In PT'int. until 6 o'clock, -when t,he -u*^le

blithering, flash, becapped mob began to buzz like a hiVe of angry bees and stamp about like a corral of colts, and no one, on the premises had a hope of any more sleep.

This is carrying football too far. People are patient under the infliction of it on their ears on car or boat, strive to be resigned when it causes them to be bumped into the gutter by a votary or votaries . who imagine they are butting through for a try, and endeavor not to let it ruin their digestion at public meal tables ; but when it routs sleep from tired eyes and risks health and even life m the watches of the night, as Captain Corcoran said, "Why, damme, it's too bad !" ,It is seriously affecting the very brain of the young lads m school or business, especially business. When' they should be assimilating the secrets and intracies of 'trade, they are dreaming, open, mouthed, of last Saturday's or the coming game of football. Continually, on the streets, errand boys may be seen struggling frantically along, m the heavy hob-nailed boots peculiar to the genus boy, habitat New Zealand, every few yards swerving at an angle of 45 , degrees off their course and shooting back on another angle on to it, all the while with fixed, abstracted "lare and agonised straining. For a while they might be .^thought to be,(i absolutely .mad, '•'naturals," or maniacs ; but after watchingc a few. .of. these eccentric creatures' the conclusion is arrived at that they; are doing; imaginary "iong, ■dodprv runs,"- and that the sudden swerves jare executed to pass a visionary ;Opposing - back-player:.: who is endeavoring to intercept and collar them. The look m the eyesiof these lads shows that they are quite dead to all but the merest animal instinct of self-preservation among the traffic. They fancy they are distinguishing themselves on the football field and no other, more useful impression can enter or remain- m the brain, under such an obsession. Football, as football, is as has been said, a very fine, noble, inspiriting, valuable pastime, but as a business m life and as an incentive to brutalit^, a cause of coarsening the race and dulling its . intellect, it is nothing, less than a damnable . danger.