NATIONAL CHARACTER

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1933, Page 14

NATIONAL CHARACTER

ITS REFLECTION IN SPORT. VARIED APPEAL OF GAMES./" : Nations \ reflect their, characteristics very surely in their attitudes toward sport To'the peoples of some countries sport is a minor interlude in the serious business of 'life; - peoples; of 'other countries sport is almost the serious business of life itself, writes Frank Poxon, in the, London News Chronicle. Another aspect of the same thane is the iact that certain sports specially appeal to certain nations, while other spojts remain alien in spirit to other nations.. Cricket is as popular in. Australia, South African, India and the West Indies as it -is at the Oval, but I doubt if it will ever be popular in America or in France. For some reason the leisured warfare of “the meadow game with the beautiful name” does not appeal to the people ,of those two countries, and it would-be idly foolish ■ to blame them for the fact ’ ■ > ' ■’ THE:BASEBALL CRAZE. ’Nor does baseball, which sends American crowds crazy with excitement, thrill the average sport-loving Englishman. He is just.niildly interested in what he conto be 'a good game, ahd, again, it would be silly to blame him. He just makes his: choice. ' : ■ Americans do not take really kindly to orthodox English Soccer or Rugby football; -they i prefer their own type of football, which is certainly a he-man’s game in which various parts of a player’s anatomy can be permanently altered in a very brief period of time. : ’ ? ’ On the other hand, Soccer, in recent years, has swept over the Continent, and English touring teams-now meet their equals, and not their pupils—sometimes, indeed, they meet -their masters, and the matches have always to be taken seriously.'' , ■' ’• ' . ” THE DOGGED AMERICAN. ' ■ The .= of ? Americans toward sport can be defined in the one word thorough. ’ - They believe that if a game is -Worth playmg ; ; it is worth Winning, and they will go to endless pains to ensure the highest; possible degree of efficiency. Ellsworth Vines has the fastest lawn ' tennis service ‘ hi /the world, not because' He? is tall and nor because he has any special aptitude, but beeause : he had days, weeks, and months of practice at service ’that is how to do it. - --

The Americans are specially thorough in track athletics,. and. the best comment on their methods is what happened at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, when they won such a wonderful array of events and set up so many records. Perfiaps nowhere in the world is sport treated more seriously, thajj in Australia. In a sense, indeed, the Australians regard , a test match against England not as a game but as a species of very grim warfare. Defeat means a feeling of intense personal disappointment—perhaps anguish would hot be too strong a word —to a degree which is beyond the comprehension of the average Englishman, keen bn victory though he ’may be. Yes, life is real and life .is earnest for - the “Aussies” when, a/game js afoot No wonder that their two national heroes are Don’ Bradman and Walter Lindrum. FRENCH BRAINS. Watch a French lawn tennis crowd at, say, a Davis Cup tie and you' will see a strange combination of excitement and astute judgment The spectators at Auteuill get wildly worked up, and yet they are real connoisseurs of the finer points of lawn tennis; they applaud the brainy strokes rather than the spectacular ones. ’ I would say that the three people who have made France so remarkably “sport-conscious” in the last 20 years are Georges CarpentiSr, Suzane Lenglen and Jean Borotra.

Without, I hope, taking an insular view, I would suggest that the English attitude with regard to sport is just about the sanest in the world. The English are dead keen without losing their sense of proportion; it is always the game that matters and not the result. But even in England there are vivid contrasts. There is quite a lot of difference between a cricket match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, and one at Taunton, the same difference which exists between a duel a la mort and a game of draughts. I will leave it to others to suggest a reason why Russia is not, and never has been, a sports-lbving nation. If the real reason were found it might explain much' about the people of that far-flung and ever-mysterious country.