BUMPTIOUS RUGBY BOUNDERS.

NZ Truth, Issue 68, 6 October 1906, Page 5

BUMPTIOUS RUGBY BOUNDERS.

In the "Post" of Tuesday appeared letters from Neil Galbraith and Edgar Wylie making a vain and wobbly, attempt to explain and justify the scandalous and outrageous action of tne former io ordering policemen to remove the reporters from the football ground on the previous Saturday, week, on the occasion of the North v. South match. The Galbraith man's effusion was simply a statement of the alleged fact that he had the sanction of the N.Z.R.U. for his blackguardly act, except where it was absolutely untrue, as was the clause m which he said that the reporters are not allowed on the gruund at other centres m N.Z. If the man had any, real experience or could use his eyes he would know that m Dunedin the reporters always take their notes on the touchline. Also a press box that is reserved for pressmen, with proper conveniences, and no invasion of blatant, argumentative, self-assertive committeemen, "throwing chests," is a ': vastly different thing to being packed among a crowd of excited people with' no chance of taking a note and so far from the play that the letters on the players' jerseys are indistinguishable. In Sydney, where infinitely larger | crowds assemble at a match, the' management provide ample table and' seating accommodation for the Press,, right out [on the ground, close to the touchline ; and no kick has ever, been raised against the system. But then, of course, football matches m Sydney are not run by a parcel of vulgar, conceited bounders, with heads .swollen to bursting-point by thejr ineffable sense oi their own wonderful greatness j Galbraith says "several press representatives retained these seats without demur." As a fact, there was only one correspondent and a local gentleman seeking material for a few notes on the game for a 1 southern paper ; the three ("Times," 1 "Post," and "Truth") who went onto the ground have always done so.. The "honorary" treasurer is also wrong when he says they left their seats to go onto the ground. Only. "Truth's" representative was ever iir the anvthing-but-reserved seats, that day. The other two went straight onto the ground, as usual. *. • • Mr Wylie's "manifesto" took a week to draw up and the combined brains of the N.Z.R.U. Committee should get themselves brushed if that is the best they can do. It is weak, unconvincing and full of misstatements, to use a mild term. The press representatives, as far as "Truth" is concerned, did not receive special passes for a reserved portion of ths stand. Mr Wylie's "considerable number of press representatives" resolves: itself into two, as explained above., He says, that the Committee considers that a seat on the grandstand afforded a better vantage ground from which to report, than "a recumhent position on the ground." This is passing strange, coming from a selector who so recently, when asked byi his fellow-selector to go into the stand to mark thc play with a view, to picking a team, refused to do so, averring that he could not sec sufficiently well from the pavilion, and took his stand on the touchline throughout the game. Also his argument that if the three pressmen had been allowed to remain on the ground, others would have gone there/too, is absolutely silly. The pressmen have always been there hitherto, and the public recognise their right to he there and would never dream of forcing their way onto the field for that reason. Thie action of Saturday week was blackguardly and the attempts to excuse it are pitiable and only land its perpetrators deeper m the mire.