FOOTBALL AT HONOLULU.

Otago Witness, Issue 2561, 6 May 1903, Page 52

FOOTBALL AT HONOLULU.

Mr J. W. Waldron, cf Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, gives Athletic News readers a glimpse of football in- the tropics. "In a match p^yed in January be-tween the Honolulus and the Pacifies, "in which I was referee, one of the Honolulu backs was wearing a hard straw hat to shade hi? ey« from the sun. In a perfectly legitimate charge he brought down one of the Pacific forwards rather heavily, aicer which the forward came to me mth a request that I should make the back take off the 6traw hat, as it was dr.ngerous. I replied that as far as I knew there was no rule by which I could dictate to a man what he should wear. However, in thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that the brim of a straw hat miglu cut a man's face very badly or even blind a man, and so I told the back he must get another hat. He was unable to get one to suit him, and, playing bare-headed in tho face of a tropical sum., and being put out at my decision, payed so badly that the Pacifies scored, and won the match. The decision has created a let of feeling here, some holding I was perfectly right, and others th?t I had absolutely no right to interfere — so the question is put to you on the above agreement of facts." — I quite asre--. (says the Athletic News writer) with ray correspondent that a hard straw hat on a back's head might be dangerous. But there is nothing- ra the laws of the game, or in the rules, which affords us any guidance, probably because the framevs never anticipated that football would ever be accliIhing les3 calcu'ated to inflict injury- The referee would, therefore, have no absolute right to order the back to discard his headgear, but he would only be doing his duty in strongly advising the man to wear something less calculated 'to inflict :\njury. The case is on all fours with an incident related by a London correspondent of a goalkeeper who wore a sweater of very nearly the same colour as the jerseys of the other side — so nearly the same as to confuse the referee's judgment during a molee near goal. In this case the referee recognised that he had no power to compel the goalkeeper to chanpre, but a suggestion that it would be eminently desirable had the same effect.