THE CIVILIZER

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE CIVILIZER

FOOTBALL IN KIKORO

(By

O.E.W.)

An old Italian woman in the canefield country of Queensland once delivered herself of opinions to the writer on the subject of British sportsmanship. “You are proud of being good losers, huh?” she inquired. “But you are really proud of being good liars. You lose and you smile and you shake the hand and say, ‘Well played, sir!’ But all the lime you want to hit him hard on the face!” The opinion may be debatable, but the conventional forms of sportsmanship, even if a cherished hypocrisy, are at least the exclusive by-products of civilisation. A certain young district officer in the Kikoro district of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea learnt the truth of that one day about two years ago. The D.O. who, for obvious reasons, had better be Mr. Smith in the story, had been trained in the more gentle territories of Papua, and was a firm believer in the innate sportsmanship of native races and the effect of games in supplanting the primitive spirit of competition between natives of rival villages.

On arrival at his out-station some two hundred miles from Marienberg, he was somewhat discouraged to find that his predecessor at the post had concentrated almost entirely upon the preservation of order among the indentured labour of the few copra plantations, and had left the villages of the surrounding district very much to their own devices. ft was purely by chance that he

stumbled upon a means of whining a

certain measure of their confidence. His native police were from New Britain—an extremely civilised and blase set of fellows who occasionally amused themselves by kicking about a partly deflated and very battered soccer football.

Noticing the cautious but none the less avid interest of a group of warriors from a nearby village, Mr. Smith struck

on the rather bright plan of making the village a ceremonial present of a “dim-dim” (white man’s) football. His first gift was of an old cover and bladder much patched and mended, which had somehow come to be included in his travelling kit ever since schooldays. The entire village watched his solemn demonstration to a few timorous braves of the principles of the dim-dim game from the shelter of the nearby bush; but before the patrol party left next morning, the entire populace was cautiously applying its collective toe to the white man’s magic present. Needless to say the football was burst inside a week and a deputation of village elders waited on Smith at the station some 30 miles away with a humble request to make repairs. Smith declared that the strides civilisation made in his district in the ensuing 18 months would have startled even a sanguine young missionary. There is not space to give the entire amusing history of the development of soccer football in Kikoro, but the first official match was notable. It was arranged between a team from Lia-er’s village and an eleven known facetiously in the limited white community as “Woolwich Arsenal,” led by a brave with the impressive title.of “The luluai, Tomygha-terua, the tambaram (witch) chaser.”

Tire match was remarkable, perhaps unique, in that it was scheduled to start at 5 o’clock in the morning. The ground boundaries were marked by deeply indented hoe-lines and the goal posts were four extremely wobbly and attentuated lengths of kunda cane. Of course at 5 o’clock there was no sign of either team. At 6 the first straggling barrackers began to arrive with ceremonial devil masks. They immediately proceeded to make “sing song” and cook several draggled pan-ots shot on the journey from the village. Later, other supporters arrived laden with cooked yams and taro, dried pork and lizard meat and gourds full of small white grubs with which to sustain their representatives both before the match and at “half-time.” At 7 o’clock members of “Woolwich Arsenal” deigned to put in an appearance, and proceeded to entertain the now considerable crowd of spectators with a war-dance highly offensive to the supporters of Lia-er. At 8 the teams had foregathered and Smith, clad in extremely short shorts, a violent green jersey and football boots gave the usual exhortation about fair-play and “may the best team win.” Lia-er and his gang then solemnly retired to make a last incursion on the gourds of white grubs while the Arsenal loosened up by a series of prodigiously high, standing leaps which evoked yells of intense enthusiasm from the partisan villagers. Both teams then divested themselves of the last items of clothing and movable ornament. Lia-er kicked off—that is to say applied his horny toe to the leather with such terrific effect that it dropped barely short of the opposing goal. Smith, who was once a prominent player for a good Australian club, justly remarked afterwards that he had never seen such a kick in his life!

The remarkable part of the whole business was that the standard of football played by those stark-naked Aitape tribesmen was good—would have been considered good in any company. Their activity was astonishing, and their condition excellent. Their idea of positional play wps far less hazy than that of many a provincial soccer player. If Tomygha’s centre half had not scored a well judged goal shortly after the opening of the second session, the match—and the season—might conceivably have been a success. The other team, spurred by the terrific epithets showered on it by the now frantic barrackers of both sides, made such desperate efforts to reply that the strain and excitement was too much for the Arsenal goalie. After stopping a succession of hot shots on the tensed muscles of his bare abdomen he gave vent to a thin howl, seized the ball and, eluding half-a-dozen outstretched toes departed for the bush without further ceremony. His argument was perfectly logical. If the ball was removed from the scene of combat, obviously the rival village cOuld not win the match and the kudos of an initial advantage would remain with his team-mates, however much argument there was to the contrary.

When the District Officer’s police byos had dispersed the willing riot of frantically excited and indignant spectators there was no longer sign of either team. They had departed into the bush silently and with murderous intent. Nor did the matter of the absconding goalie and the missing football end there, unfortunately for the youthful D.O. Smith later had occasion to make an official report that “an unknown tribe from the interior” hac. made a raid on Tomygha’s village, carried off four Marys and killed a boy, besides slaughtering several pigs. The bicycle pump with v. hich the football enthusiast was wont to pump up the damaged spheres of his pupils has lain idle ever since the memorable day of the first, and last, football match of the Aitapc season.