AMATEUR OR PROFESSIONAL?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16042, 1 February 1923, Page 7

AMATEUR OR PROFESSIONAL?

THE INTERESTS OF ATHLETICS

(Special to the Herald.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day

“There at'e no real professionals in New Zealand,” said Mr B. McKenna at tv meeting of the general committee of the St. Patrick’s Sports Association. Tho remark was made in the course of discussion on a letter received from the Waihora Football Club, which asked permission to enter a teant for the football clubs;’ relay race. “The position of Our club;” the secretary wrote, “is that the fotir competitors ft re termed professionals so far as running is, concerned, yet, on the (other hand|, they play amateur football, and as the race in question is really a clubs’ race (the team running entirely for the honor of the club) I think in the circumstances you might be able to give some ruling suitable to all the clubs.”

Mr McKenna stated that St, Patrick’s Association endeavored to cater for both amateur and professional sport. Athletics in New Zealand would have been in poor condition if it had not been for the efforts of the so-called professional bodies like the old Caledonian Societies. There would have been no Sports in Timnrit, or Oamaru, or Dunedin if the. initiative had been left to the amateur bodies. Even in Christchurch the amateur body was not operating to any great extent. Merchant, one, of the lincst athletes who had ever visited New Zealand, has to go away without Christchurmh people having the chance of seeing him in action. The St. Patrick’s Association was not out for gain. It would not have worried if it had lost £IOO in bringing the Americans to Christchurch. There was, too much quibbling about amateurism. If the people of Christchurch were to back up amateur athletics as earnestly as they talked about it the sport would advance by leaps and bounds, instead enormous crowds went to see professional sport at tli <; racecourses and trotting grounds, while the attendance ftt amateur athletics in Lancaster Park was miserable. Yet people talked vigorously of what amateur sport had done for the nation. It certainly had done a great deal, but it would do much more if the people who talked so much about amateur sport supported it a little better. In the speaker’s opinion the so-called professionals were just as clean as any amateurs. 'They were cash amateurs. It as impossible to dra\j’ a line between the amateur and the professional. Many tennis players played for something more than the game. One heard a good deal of amateur cricket, yet professionals and amateurs, though they might enter by different gates, played side by side in tho field. Why should not professional and amateur runners nm against each other. The real professional runner did not exist in New Zealand. Horse racing was a purely professional sport. It had been put on a good footing by gentlemen who had devoted their attention to keeping it clean. All that was necessary in professional running was that it should be kept, clean.. The question as to whether it was possible to invite ail official of a professional body to an amateur meeting had been seriously discussed in Clirist<Ti.ir. li. To his mind this was an illustialioii ’of the fact that the advocates of amateurism were going beyond the bounds of reason.

It was decided to apply to the amateur body for the exemption of the Waihora players from the rule.