BRITAIN ATTACKED

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1935, Page 5

BRITAIN ATTACKED

LESS SPORTSMANSHIP FORGOT VITAL PRINCIPLE THREE INCIDENTS OF 1934 ARTICLE IN DAILY MAIL By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 6.30 p.m. London, Jan. 12. An attack on British sportsmanship, largely due to the outcome of the bodyline controversy, occupies three columns of the leader page of the Daily Mail. It is written by the sporting editor, Mr. Freeman. He declares that international sport in 1934 provided instances of the English forgetting the one vital principle which should dominate all their actions, namely, “The game is greater than the player.” Whereas for half a century or more the basic rules of British outdoor sports remained unchallenged, almost unchanged, outstanding facts depressingly illustrating the modem att’*ude were:— The Marylebone Cricket Club compelled to define an unfair attack on batsmen. The Football Association experimentwith two referees, instead of one. The Rugby Union’s strong denunciation of the increasing infringement of scrummage laws. These collectively constituted an overwhelming charge against British sportsmanship. “The truth is,” he continues, “that skill and physical prowess have been subordinated to sharp practice and mental cunning. The nation that taught the world to play is now fast losing its sense of the joyousness, gaiety and supreme honesty of true sport. *‘We must return to the spirit of our fathers and oppose ill-considered interpretations of laws which stood the test af time when sportsmanship was an ideal.”