AMATEUR BOXING AND MR ALDRIDGE’S MISSION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17758, 30 January 1926, Page 2

AMATEUR BOXING AND MR ALDRIDGE’S MISSION.

To the Editor. Sir, —I read with a considerable amount of interest your two articles in yesterday’s issue—the statement b> Mr G. P. Aldridge, and the r'OP’tion of the Christchurch Sports Cl*ib. It is very evident that conditions in the sport are anything but satisfactory, and is that to be wondered at? An analysis of the position discloses the fact that the whole original plan of those who were responsible for placing boxing amongst the regular sports of the Dominion 'has been completely upset by the advent of persons who have commercialised the sport. Originally the controlling body was an amateur organisation; to-day, in the eyes of the sports world, it is professional, just as the New Zealand Athletic and Cycling Union is. This fact, though violently refuted by those associated with the present regime, and distasteful as it appears to be to them, nevertheless has to be admitted. A body which handles professional sport ipso facto is a professional body. When, in 1923, the New Zealand Boxing Association inserted a rule inviting the formation of “ amateur ” clubs, it sounded the beginning of the end of its career as a controlling factor for amateurism. I want your readers to particularly note that word “ amateur.” Clause 1 of Rule 23 reads as follows:-—“ A Local Association may make provision in its rules, subject to the approval of the Centre Executive (by the way, there are not any Centre executives now, the Centre System being abolished in 1924, I think, as was only to be expected, seeing that each Association is purely a promoting body), for the affiliation of Amateur Boxing Clubs.” Now, I ask, if the New Zealand Boxing Association is an amateur organisation (of course it is not in the ej'es of properly constituted amateur sports bodies) why seek the affiliation of “amateur” clubs? I do not expect the point to be understood or accepted by the fifty-fifty fraternity —that is, the fence straddlers, one foot in the amateur camp and the other in the professional, and to that fraternity I may say, is largely due the existing trouble. As our recent visitor, Mr “Snowy"* Baker, said at the reception given him at the Pioneer Sports Club’s rooms, “ a man has to be either one thing or the other; he must be either an amateur or a professional. There is no half-way house.” Unfortunately there are some who think differently, and while loudly proclaiming that they are amateur, in reality have not even a nodding acquaintance with the first principles of amateurism. When the New Zealand Boxing Association inserted its rule inviting the formation of amateur clubs, the delegates were absolutely in ignorance of the possible results of their action. Anyone with a particle of knowledge of amateur law and amateur spirit must have known that the inevitable outcome would be the demand by amateurs for the control of their own affairs. But because the bulk of the delegates were far more conversant with professional promotion than with amateurism, they, in their ignorance, immediately provided those who stood for amateurism with the opportunity to fight for the principle of independent action.

To the Christchurch Sports Club belongs the honour (?) of penalising two men, who took advantage of the rule to aid in the advancement of the amateur cause with which they had always been, and still are, prominently associated. And let it be known that the New Zealand Boxing Council supported the Sports Club in its action. It is pertinent here to point out that, in another part of New Zealand, and before the rule I have quoted came into existence, an amateur club was formed, yet there is no record of the association in that district having penalised the founders of the club, though some of them were members of the association. Then why penalise two men in Christchurch, and still further, why only two of several members of the Christchurch Sports Club who were identified with the movement to form an amateur club? And what has the outcome been ? Just about what the initiated could expect. The two members of the Sports Club have become martyrs in the eyes of those who are loyal to amateurism. The movement for the emancipation of the amateur from the domination of the professional promoter, is increasing by leaps and bounds, as its object becomes .understood. The New Zealand Association is making desperate efforts to stem the progress of the movement, and is filching the planks of the opposition platform. Its realisation of the power of amateurism when the force of amateurism is exerted, as it is being exerted, is no doubt the reason why it is spending its funds in sending its secretary on his present mission. Mr Aldridge, by the power of his pleading, may swing waverers round for the time being, but neither he nor his colleagues in Wellington have any more hope of stemming the steadily rising demand for amateur control by amateurs than King Canute’s counsellors had of preventing the incoming tide washing over the feet of their royal master.—l am, etc., AMATEUR.