“ IS THIS SPORT?” CROWD ASKED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18547, 22 August 1928, Page 11

“ IS THIS SPORT?” CROWD ASKED.

DUNEDIN COMMENT ON SECOND LEAGUE TEST.

VENOMOUS INCIDENTS FAR TOO FREQUENT,

Commenting on rough play in the second League test match, the Dunedin “Star,” in an editorial, says:— “Many Dunedin football enthusiasts renewed acquaintances with the Caledonian Ground on Saturday after a long exile. This ground has many memories for the older generation of our public, some of them very pleasurable. For in days past Otago was

a province to be reckoned with, and the dark blue teams, whether winners or losers, seldom failed to do credit to themselves, whether as players or men. The game, in its historic setting at the then recognised local home of Dunedin .football, suffered no loss of prestige as a sport worthy of gentlemen. It was an altogether different tale on Saturday, and many people filed through the exits sincerely regretting that they had ever entered the turnstiles to spend such a fine Saturday afternoon in

watching such venomous incidents as disfigured the game practically throughout its course. They had hoped for a fair opportunity of comparing the two codes. An international game under perfect physical conditions ought to provide it. The English team, with an established reputation, had been beaten in the first “test” game by the New Zealand team, but was considered quite equal to the task of reversing the Auckland result. A one-sided game was quite unlikely; an open game, with speed and skill continually in evidence, was confidently anticipated. Yet the big crowd left the ground with one thought uppermost: “Is this sport?”

‘Not Sport.” “A great deal of it was certainly not sport. There was a good deal to admire in the play, once the irritating punctiliousness of the referee over the misnamed putting of the ball into the scrum had been temporarily overcome. There may have been offences by the heaving players, and the controller of the game may have been technically correct. But the perpetually shrieking whistle and the enforced irksome repetition by the packs of a formula to restart play must have helped to fray .out their patience as much as it did that of the lookers-on. Still, that is not a satisfactory explanation of the relegation of football to second place and putting personal animus first. There are unfortunately reasons for believing that the feeling existed before the teams came on to the ground. After the “test” game in Auckland there had been a dinner, and when the referee was criticised there by the visiting captain for imposing restrictions unknown to him and his men, the referee retaliated by calling the visiting players ‘squealers.’ The very frankness of the exchange ought to have cleared the atmosphere once the surprise of it had worn off. But apparently it was allowed to rankle, and there seems to have been a theit understanding that accounts must be squared on the Caledonian Ground. The preliminaries were brief. Before the game had been in progress more than a few minutes the spectators were bombarding the referee with cries of ‘Put him off,’ referring to one very powerfully-built English player. Had the advice been taken thus early the spirit of the game might possibly have been sweetened. On the other hand, it might not, so deep-seated was the intent to ‘get even’ with someone on the other side.

“The animus was not exhibited by every member of each team; but it was not confined to one or two alone. The result was periodic stoppage of play while the ambulance men treated and perhaps removed on a stretcher, some player after a particularly vicious toss.

“In fact, the outstanding memory of the game to many spectators will be the peculiarly well-drilled appearance and workmanlike style of the stretcher-bearers. It gave strangers to the code the impression of this being the usual routine, and that such things are to be expected when League football is played. “Crude Methods.”

“For the sake of the League game we sincerely hope that this is not so. In fact, we judge it to be not so from the speeches made later in the evening at the dinner after the game. Confession of wrong-doing was freely made. But some of the grounds for the confession were not entirely to our liking. It was admitted that it had been a mistaken policy to open the door to brutality, chiefly because it was a bad advertisement for the game in Dunedin, where of all tfcie football centres the defections from the established code had been least. One joint function of the two teams was to secure converts, whether as players or supporters. Their crude methods made them rank failures as missionaries. In every crowd there is a percentage whose valuation of an adequate return for their entrance money rises with the ‘willingness’ imparted to the play. But they are in a minority on New Zealand grounds, and it is highly probable that these apostles of vigour disagreed with the referee when late in the game he ordered a player off the field, instead of merely repeating the warnings which had so dismally failed to impress those to whom they had been addressed. It is far from our intention in consequence of this game of unpleasant memory to hold one code up to obloquy and canonise the other by comparison. The spirit shown in some of the games in South Africa during the All Blacks’ tour, and the disposition there is in our domestic games to play the man rather than the ball, with a resulting list of casualties out of all proportion to what may reasonably be expected in football, cannot have been overlooked by the best friends of the game.”