COLLEGE PANTS TOO LONG AND SCHOOL DITTOES TOO TIGHT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18803, 4 July 1929, Page 11

COLLEGE PANTS TOO LONG AND SCHOOL DITTOES TOO TIGHT.

SOME IMPRESSIONS FROM THE TOUCHLINE. (Contributed.) Soon after the first few passing rushes had gone astray, and a few speculators had failed to connect, and when the ball hung persistently in the back of the High School scrum, I came to the conclusion that it was going to be a rotten game, and I was very lucky not to have offered my friend Green 10 points in on School, as I had intended to do, because, notwithstanding 1 his abysmal ignorance of Rugby probabilities, his confounded luck would have defeated my attempts to get even with him. What gave me all the greater pride in my prescience on this occasion was the contemplation of the nether garments of the College team. Up till yesterday I had no idea that the Christ’s College authorities had neck-to-knee ideas about the tenue of a football team. If I had known that any college boy displaying more than three inches of knee-joint would be sent down or rusticated or otherwise ostracised, I would have increased my offer to Green by five points, because I don’t know to this minute how they expect boys to run in a species of clammy knickers or bifurcated butchers’ aprons. Fortunately for me,, too, I was also unaware until I scrambled on to a trestle near the touch-line that School were wearing their pants in sausage- ; skin style this season. Now this is very convenient in a Rugby cense, because it gives the other fellow mighty little to grab hold of, whereas the flowing garments of the College boys looked as if they were positively meant to be swung on, but it has the disadvantage of cramping the wearers’ style, especially in a tight melee in proximity to ladies. I noticed a strained and hunted expression on the innocent faces of several of the devotees of this fashion, especially in high punting, and came to the conclusion that, after all, the College style, if a little grandmotherly, would be best suited to gatherings of the fair sex—or rather to manly ideas of what the fair sex would prefer the sterner sex to think they preferred—you know what I mean. I noticed, however, in the scrums, that the breath of both sides came in short pants. Indeed, this was not surprising, because the referee was one of those sensible fellows who are not silly enough to blow their whistle whenever a good sacks on the mill is developing. I liked that referee, because he was enjoying the game as much as the terrier that chased the black rabbit round the Cathedral, and there’s no better referee in Christchurch, anyhow, even if he did once play for Linwood. Yes, the game had compensations. The sun turned that big wattle tree a wonderful shade of green and gold. I remember the tree because the ball hit it once, and it made me think that the touchline judge was a sport because he cribbed College up ten yards that time, even though he was carrying a School flag. Yes, they were all sports, and excep. for a slight earache from the “ Hairy tono rahs ” in my rear, I really enjoyed the outing from start to finish.