Bad Manners That Are Spoiling Sport In Great Britain

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1934, Page 11

Bad Manners That Are Spoiling Sport In Great Britain

WILL TO WIN BEING MANIFESTED IN LAMENTABLE WAYS

VVE seem to be at the peak of an age of bad manners in sport. We have reached the stage when the result too often means more than the game, and though the will-to-win is a very desirable thing it is being manifest in ways which are sometimes lamentable and occasionally even shocking (writes J. H. Freeman, sports editor of the London “Daily Mail.”) It is not creditable to British sport to witness on the centre court at Wimbledon one of our leading players dancing a jig—not once but. half a dozen times

“And when the one great Scorer comes To write against your name, He asks not if . you won or lost But how you played the game.” —to express his delight at the success of one of his own shots, or the : failure of one from a physically-exhausted foreign opponent. The feeling of overwhelming shame which this spectacle created in the minds of thousands of spectators had not died away when'there came from another of' our famous male players a display of petulance that would have disgraced a schoolboy. The fate of a boy at the hands of his schoolfellows after he had publicly kicked his lawn tennis racket across the court following a losing stroke can be better imagined than described. Contrast these outbursts with the pleasant eccentricities and quaint mannerisms of the volatile Jean Borotra. Must we go to France to learn the etiquette of the centre court? If Wimbledon has disturbed our peace, is there any balm for the unquiet mind from the pleasant greens of Sandwich?

If a prospective champion plays dazzling golf for three rounds and—with the prize now his—falters on the fourth, is there any need to make excuse? Rather does admiration of a superb display grow faint when public talk is made of an unwise luncheon of spaghetti and ice-cream. Are such men to tread Olympian heights and guard the ramparts of our sporting fame?

Nor is there solace to be found if we go behind the scenes in cricket or football, or the ancient sport of racing. 'Twice in the month of April Wembley made gaping wounds in our national pride of sportsmanship. You could feel the frozen silence when, while England engaged Scotland in friendly if stern warfare on the football field, a player’s feet were swept from under him with the ball yards distant.

Could it have been suggested of the days of Grace that cricketers had refused the call of country on the plea of illness or injury and made miraculous recovery with their counties?

And only yesterday the cricket world was shocked to hear that regrettable personal feeling had entered into a controversy which has led to the cancellation of fixtures between two of our famous counties.

Have things come to such a pass that twice in two years the stewards of Royal Ascot have been compelled to inquire into allegations of bad sportsmanship? Nor does the indictment end there Read the stories of the. oldriime fights, when knuckles were bare and the only breathing space came from a knockdown.

Then scan the histories of postwar contests. Fouls and fouls, and again fouls; fights ended illegitimately in one. two, and three rounds, followed by heated controversy, the holding-up of purse money, and (sometimes) renewed battles —but in courts of law.

Would sportsmen with a proper appreciation of their own high duty and a well-manpered consideration rg the rights of the public act like

There was no need in the days of Sayers and Heenan to draw up articles of agreement, even if they had been legal. ' ' Yet one of the best matchmaking promoters of boxing this country has ever known was compelled to throw in his hand because he could not get boxers to carry out contracts that had been duly signed by themselves, their relatives, their managers, and their publicity agents after days of argument about conditions. The truth is that our modern sportsmen—thank goodness, our sportswomen with few exceptions are untainted —are pampered, belauded, garlanded, and hero-worshipped to such an extent that they ofteh lose all sense, of proportion and act as if they themselves were greater than the games they play. They become conceited and boorish; they must win their games or they lose their tempers; their tennis rackets and their cricket bats are not so much instruments of skill as they are selfish weapons ip the battle for personal aggrandisement. It is symptomatic of the age that in the United States some of the governing bodies Of boxing should have adopted what is called the no-foul rule. An attempt has been made to introduce a similar questionable clause in this country.' We do not want it; we prefer other means, of enforcing our interpretation of fighting upon the men who demand swollen purses for the doubtful pleasure of seeing them do anything but fight. But we must admit that the New York Boxing Commission and the people who would follow its lead in Great Britain are neither fools noi' charlatans. . The Commission’s one desire, muddleheaded though it may seem, has. been to protect the public, to be sure that the man who paid $5O was not subscribing a dollar a second to see two men enter a ring and the referee order one of them out again. If it is true that a country gets the Government it deserves, it is equally true that the men who come to the top —and stay there —in national sport are the men whose behaviour and demeanour on and off the field are as correct as their skill is high. Jimmy Wilde and Jack Hobbs, Harry Vardon and Pou’ton Palmer do not live in the affections of a sport-loving nation bpcause of their supreme artistry alone. ' None of these—and there are hundreds of others—showed irritation iff. the moment of defeat, made grimaces, gesticulated, questioned the umpire or referee; nor did they swagger in victory and lord it over a fallen foe.

They learned most thoroughly that self-control in the hour of or the bitter moment of defeat is the first essential of true sportsmanship.