ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1929, Page 15

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL

SPAIN BEATS ENGLAND. For the first time an official Football Association team have been beaten on the Continent. This was in a match in Madrid against Spain, and the result can be taken as definite proof of the improvement the game has made on the Continent. Ten minutes from the.end the English players led by three goals to two. Then the Spaniards made a great spurt, and pulled the game out of the fire. Excuses for the defeat are unnecessary. Spain played first-class football. But the conditions under which the game was played imposed a handicap on the English side. In the first place, it was the last match of three, the others being against France and Belgium, and the men were in the train for twenty-four hours before going on the field in Madrid. Moreover, the turf was as hard as a turnpike road, and the temperature was up in the eighties. Placed along the side lines were buckets of water, from which the men sprayed themselves with sponges when the op-

portunity occurred, and it was obvious that the F.A. men wilted in the heat before the end. It was unfortunate, too, that the team had to take the field without a regular centre forward. Camsell, who had scored two goals against France and three against Belgium, was unfit to play, and his place was taken by Carter, the West Bromwich Albion inside right. As a, matter of fact, the party were under strength. They comprised only thirteen players, and this was not enough for three games. Several other English League teams are at present on the Continent, and in every case they report improvement on the part of the opposition. Indeed, there is little doubt that there will soon be a movement on the part of European countries to join in the international championship.