AMATEUR “PROS.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17031, 3 May 1923, Page 7

AMATEUR “PROS.”

AN AUCKLAND PROTEST. The historian of a distant jege who investigates the conditions oi that love of games which characterise* the British -Commonwealth in this era will he puzzled bj r many things, says tiie Auckland “ Star ” editorially, and by none so much, perhaps, as by the coulioversy that revolves round the problem of amateur versus professional, and the anomalies and inconsistencies of amateur codoe. We pubush some remarks made by a leading English tennis authority on the subject, and we point out that while Mr Wallis Myers ranks a.s p.u amateur he makes a good living bv writing about the game. If he opened a shop to sell tennus material he would, wo believe, be disqualified under the rule?. Each sport has its own definition, and some are much more rigid than others. Englisn rowing, for exaraph-, is very strict, and it* barring of artisan • oarsmen virtually prevents Australia from sanding a crew to Henley. Rugby football is also perticuar in respect to money payment*. Cricket is the most humorous of sports in its c'istinotions and inconsistencies. Amateurs and professionals are still in ma.iy cases classes apart. In England they take the field througn different gates and use separate dressing rooms, and a section of the Press still refers to ohe product of Harrow and Cambridge as Mr X and the product of some Yorkshire village green as plain Y- -. As we have seen lately, it £* possible for amateurs and professionals in a touring team to be billeted separately. Yet it is notoriotis that several famous amateurs have lived on the game. The great W. G. Grace openly did ao. He was paid eo much a year for his services, and for captaining an English team in Australia he was paid a lump sum of some thousands of pounds. He probably mado a great deal more out cricket than ne did out of yet he ranked as an amateur, and he and other English amateurs who disdained not to take posts as county secretaries or to make money by writing about cricket, did not hesitate to lord it over the professional in a way that moved Australian cricketers to pointed comment. Yet Australan players themselves l ave been inconsistent. They have divided the profits of tours in England, yet they have insisted on being ranked as amaveurs, and they have been “Mistered” by the English papers that maintain that distinction. It is these distinctions rather than the making of money by suoh “ amateurs ** out of the games they plav. that offend. Real araateunsm is a fine ideal, but the difficulties of preserving it when so much is demanded of athletes are obvious. To i>e a first-class cricketer a man must devote a great deal of his time to the game. If he has no private means what is he to do? Similarly the great tennis players make of the game much more than a recreation. It tends to be the main business of life, and w'hat with tournaments at home and trips abroad to compete at "Wimbledon and for the Davis Cup, how much time is left for earning a living in the ordinary way*