English Team Wins First International Soccer Match.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18938, 7 December 1929, Page 10

English Team Wins First International Soccer Match.

SPORTING NOTES FROM LONDON.

(Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, October 24. England have won the first of the international Soccer matches, beating Ireland in Belfast by three goals to none. It was a good performance, but no better than should have been accomplished. Irish football at home has never been strong owing to the fact that no sooner does a player attain the first-class standard than his ambitions take him either to England or Scotland. Now it is even weaker through the game having been split into rival sections, the old as represented by the northern clubs, and the south, which is under the Free State flag. In these circumstances, all save two of the players for the match with England had to be borrowed, and it was unfortunate that the choice was restricted. So important is the part played by League football to-day that the tendency is to make international contests subordinate to club games, and there is a strong movement in England to decide representative fixtures in midj veek. This proposal is strongly opposed by the other countries on the ground that it would mean a big drop in receipts and that they could not carry on without revenue from this source. But the English clubs are the masters of the situation and already they have threatened that unless the scheme is adopted they will refuse to release their players to the other countries. It is undoubtedly true that clubs are severely handicapped through the calls made on them. For instance, Middlesbrough were without three of their best players, who had been summoned to Belfast, in opposing Everton. Leicester City had to oppose Aston Villa without their right wing forwards, and it was not surprising that both these clubs suffered defeat. But there is still a wide interest in international football, as was shown by the fact that forty thousand people were present at the game in Belfast. The Irishmen played hard and with fine courage, but they were hardly of the same class as England, for whom Camsell, the Middlesbrough centreforward, scored twice. Camsell has had a remarkable career. He was “lifted,” as the professional says, out of Durham County team at a time when they were members of the Third Division, for no more than £SO. He was engaged simply as a promising player who might develop in the reserve side. A month after going to Middlesbrough, however, the regular centre-forward was injured and the club were compelled to play the youth. He scored two goals in his first match and he went on scoring, and he has never been out of the team since. To-day his value for transfer purposes would not be less than £6OOO. Though Ireland were readily beaten it does not follow that the English team are good enough to overcome Scotland, and, with a view to securing more power in attack, it is likely, that fresh forwards will be tried against Wales next month.

Mixed Foursomes Golf Championship. The competitive golf season comes to an end with the mixed foursomes tournament. Introduced a few years ago by the Worplesdon Club, at a time when Roger Wethered was captain, it was intended as a social event, but it made such a wide appeal that it has since been elevated to the rank of an unofficial championship. * Players come from all parts of the country to compete in it, and, being the only competition of its kind, it creates great interest. Since winning the championship Miss Joyce Wethered has retired to seclusion of private matches, and it is her intention never again to appear in public in quest of the title. But she has always played in these mixed foursomes and has been successful on three occasions with her brother, Roger, Cyril Tolley and J. F. S. Momson, the triple Cambridge blue, as her partners. In the event now in progress she is paired with LieutenantColonel J. Dalrymple Hamilton, a scratch golfer of the club Roger Wethered is playing with the French girl, Mile Simone de la Chaume, whose engagement to Rene Lacoste, the lawn tennis player, was recently announced. The British champion of two years ago. Mile de la Chaume, did not compete at St Andrew’s this year owing to ill-health. Indeed, she had played little golf for some time, but after a shaky start at Worplesdon she found her form, and with Wethered now hitting the ball straight with his wooden clubs, they are a formidable combine* tion. Cyril Tolley arrived back from America just in time to play with another French girl, Mile Diana Esmond, the daughter of the Paris financier and racehorse owner. One can always reckon on Tolley providing a sensation. Driving to the eighth hole, his ball finished at the foot of the bank where the green starts, the length of the hole being 360 yards. There was a gentle following breeze, but it was a mighty shot. I have not the slightest doubt that Tolley is the biggest hitter in the game. Even the professionals give him this distinction. Charles Hezlet, who again holds the Irish amateur championship, is partnered by Miss Molly Gourley, the English champion, and they are likely to |go far. One incident in the play so I far stands out. At the eleventh hole Miss Wethered was left with a little chip shot over a bunker on to the v green. To the amazement of everyone she put the ball into the middle of the hazard. It was so extraordinary that the spectators laughed. Never before had the champion been known to make a mistake of the sort. It was like Harry Vardon topping a brassie shot in the championship of 1922. He could not remember having done that before and it convinced him that he was really getting old. He talked of the mistake for a week, and he could not forgive himself.