C.F.A. AND SUNNYSIDE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18171, 2 June 1927, Page 4

C.F.A. AND SUNNYSIDE.

To the Editor. Sir, —Apparently “A Real Spcrt" has a more intimate association with the C.P.A. than he is prepared to disclose, but his close contact and enlightenment on matters relative to the C.F.A.’s financing of travelling teams has only meant that his knowledge of the Sunnvside team and its workings has been stifled. To talk grandiloquently of the £4l paid from the N.Z.F.A. to the Sunnyside Club without further comment may not be “absolutely incorrect,” but without the following facts, of which I feel sure he -is aware, it borders on the deceptive. However, lest he should have only been attentive to the horrors of a £4l disbursement, I will reluctantly supply the remaining figures and facts, that will lower the 3s Sd to a vulgar fi actional offer of that sum. The following may help to dispel the mists surrounding the Chatham Cup £4l, while it will bring home the sacrifices made in finance alone, by the “Soccer Outcasts” —Bunnyside. The team met Seacliff in the final of the South Island' Championship, at Dunedin: then North Shore, at Wellington: in the New Zealand Championship final. Our train fares alone in th«e Dunedin match cost us £32 10s 6d, then there were incidental expenses. The Wellington trip cost us £56 for train and hotel without incidentals. Herewith a copy of the C.F.A. letter to the secretary :—• “Dear Sir,—The amount received from the N.Z.F.A. on account of your club is as follows: Sunnyside v. Seacliff match £23 3 6 Sunny side v. North Shore 17 18 2 Total £4l 1 8 In accordance with the arrangements made with the then secretary of your club, I am deducting the amount advanced (£32 10s 6d) for train fares, and am enclosing herewith the C.F.A.’s cheque for the balance, viz., £8 11s Bd.” Ar, I have already stated, £32 10s 6d was for Dunedin. Then there was Wellington. £8 11s 8d came to us, and as two of our married players had been guaranteed their bare expenses, 11s 8d remained to be distributed amongst the others. Here, then, is your fraction of 3s Sd. Although secretary of the Sunnyside Football Club at the commencement of tho negotiations, I have refrained from making any statement. Unfortunately, illness removed me from an active par-

ticipation in the negotiations, and the secretarial duties were undertaken by Mr MacLachlan. I have, therefore, been forced to garner from the minute book, the head of the department, and those members of the staff who were present at the meeting. The position appears to have been simple enough. The C.F.A. were asked to accept Sunnyside on a condition of playing away from home one Saturday in the month. This they refused tc do, and as the team exists for the purpose of entertaining the patients, some other form of entertainment had to be found. A meeting of the staff was called and Rugby was decided on. We were fortunate in having a number- of the staff able to play the new game, and the question of “hoodwinking by the Rugby group” is purely imaginary, when one realises that Soccer has existed in the institution for many years, and that Soccer players had to be recruited to make possible the birth of that team. - It is an absolute, indestructible fact that the Sunnyside staff receive one free Saturday in the month, and this means, of course, that they can leave the institution on that day, but the other three must be devoted to the care and entertainment of the patients. To talk of both codes, or forming a team with outside assistance, betrays a colossal ignorance of the working of the institution. Accepting the fact that matters were hurried —a number of days, roughly fourteen, being sufficient to finish negotiations -surely the C.F.A., a far-seeing body, with the interests of Association football at heart, could have made some form of compromise to meet the immediate situation, while the main grievance, with all its ramifications, could have been arbitrated. With the utmost respect for fair criticism, I may state that it would appear that the delegates who met to deliberate actually gloated over the speed with which the body had been despatched. It seems a pity that “A Real Sport” should build up a complete theory on a wrong premise. Short as has been my association with the club, I have become painfully aware of a form of Sunnyside-fobia agitating the whole Association Football body, and within the last year it seems to have become actively suicidal, with dire .consequences to the progress of Association football in its highest form. —I am, etc., JAIN MACLEOD, Hon. Sec., Sunnyside F.C.