Popular Footballer Pays Big Price For Career in Sport

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 235, 23 December 1927, Page 10

Popular Footballer Pays Big Price For Career in Sport

A broken leg at football, and subse- | ouent amputation —it is a big price to j pay for one’s sport. This, however, is what has befallen Richard Stack, Auckland League foot- j bailer, on whose behalf an open-air concert is being given at Carla\v Park on Christmas night. It is one of the tragedies of the game. At the start of the season which marked the close of his career in sport, Stack had not intended to play, being desirous of coaching one of the junioi teams of his club. Always a real enthusiast for the old club, however, when it was put to him that the senior thirteen needed his services, he consented turn out again, until someone else was found to take his place. HIS BEST SEASON The season looked to be as much a. ' personal success for ’ Dick” as it was a sweeping triumph for the Newton Club. Not since he joined the club’s senior team in the 19J3 season as a 1 rapidly risen junior player, has Stackplayed so well as he did this year. He >aw (and materially assisted) his club to win match after match until the Stormont Shield was in the club’s keeping for the first time in 15 years. Then in the Champions of Champions < lash at Carlaw Park, which marked the climax of Newton’s brilliant “comeback,” Stack fell heavily, with the

| weight of another player accidentally , flung across his leg, and his leg snapped below the knee. It was a bad fracture and at one j stage it was touch and go with the i whole leg. After much suffering Stack had his leg amputated below the knee. He is still in hospital, and although now. able to leave his bed, it will be some time yet before he is able to leave hospital quarters. A REAL CLUB ENTHUSIAST “The best club man we had,” was the way a prominent Newton man desi cribes “Dick” Stack. “He never missed a meeting that he could attend, and on the social side he was a tower of strength to us. Dick always spoke his mind at the meetings and even if you didn’t always agree with him, you knew he was heart and soul out for the club.” A man wants no better tribute than that. On the field of play Stack was known as an honest, consistently good forward, popular with the public and players alike. There is a doubt whether Stack will be able to follow his former occupation, in view of the injury he has suffered. The effort being made by the Glee Club of the Auckland Rugby League on Sunday night is earnestly commended to all sports followers and admirers of a good, clean footballer.

Luxembourg Athletes. Luxembourg, the tiny State bordered by France, Belgium, and Germany, will send 60 athletes and gymnasts to Amsterdam for the Olympic Games next year, and will also be represented at the Olympic Winter Games at St. Moritz, next Februayr. Though this country, which has a population exceeded by many European cities, has no illusions about how it will fare at the Games, it-is taking them very seriously, and is at present undisturbed by the confusion in the camps of some other countries on the “broken time” controversy.