PAGEANTRY OF SURF

Taranaki Daily News, 25 February 1935, Page 5

PAGEANTRY OF SURF

CARNIVAL ON SYDNEY LINES. THRILL OF GRAND MARCH-PAST. “The cleanest sport of all, and one with a high purpose behind it,” was introduced to the public of Taranaki with a flourish in the week-end. The privilege of holding' the biggest national surf lifesaving competition carnival ever staged in New Zealand, one equal in conception to the world-famed events seen on Sydney metropolitan beaches, fell to the lot of the Taranaki Surf Association, and 5000 people realised the excitement that the work with reel and line arouses in the people of New South Wales. Surf bathing has a wide appeal to the people of the Dominion, and with its popularity has grown the - organisation that stands guard over the .thousands who enjoy the breakers. For long enough the work has gone on quietly, but now, in its third year, the New Zealand Surf Life-Saving Association has shown more completely than ever before another aspect of the unselfish work for which it is the controlling body. The pageantry of the surf teams with their glistening reels and striking costumes has caught the popular imagination. There were teams at New Plymouth yesterday from Dunedin, Wellington, Auckland, Wanganui and Taranaki, and the heroes of the day were 150 of their members. There were the teams from the clubs upon which the whole foundation of surf life-saving has been built —Lyall Bay, Maranui, Castlecliff, East End—clubs with a quarter of a century’s history. There were few at Ngamotu yesterday who knew the story behind the victory of Eastern United in the splendid march past parade. At Brown’s Bay, near Auckland, Eastern United maintain a patrol. Leaving a skeleton team upon the beach they travelled south by express on Saturday and arrived in time to compete on the first day, unsuccessfully. Then yesterday in vivid colours of blue and orange they marched as precisely as any trained military force and' carried off the honours against the leading teams of New Zealand. Here is the point—the small team, just enough to man the reel, comprises almost completely the full active membership of the club. The winning of the Pacific Cup by Eastern United was not merely a brilliant victory—it was an epic of the surf lifesaving movement.