LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20540, 15 February 1935, Page 8

LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Riccarton and Fendalton Trams. Dear Sir,—You seek to remove from us one of the daily thrills of existence. We like it. We like taking risks. We like being shot out of a tram-car into the middle of Riccarton Road. We’re quite pleased that we have to peer first this way and then that way, and then decide whether to dodge the oncoming motor-car or spurt for the footpath. We like it. An'd we will be more pleased still when the wet weather comes and the one-man cars keep us standing in the rain waiting for admission. As for the Fendalton Y loop, they’ll love the squalling squealing of the cars as they whirl and twist like Alfred Hill’s pois. People living on the corner will be thrilled. Ask the people at the Riccarton end of Clyde Road—they know.—l am, etc., AMUSED.

Keep Roads Clear.

Dear Sir, —Everyone recognises that trams are absolutely necessary in a big city, but they have no "monopoly over traffic and they should not be allowed under any circumstances to become a nuisance to other vehicles or users of the roads. The roads in fact are everyone’s property. No man should have the entrance to his house or his place of business blocked by such a thing as a tram loop—l doubt if it would be permitted in England or America except under payment of heavy compensation. Here in Christchurch we are not allowed to have fair play in this matter.—l am, etc., NORTH BELT.

Women’s Cricket.

Dear Sir, —As a man who first took it as a joke, I must confess that women’s cricket has astounded me and it has amazed me how well the local girls play the game. In fielding and throwing in they are a delight to watch and in batting and bowlidg they are shaping wonderfully, although they need experience of course. I would advise any of the male sex who have not seen them play to do so. They will get an eye-opener. The English team is more up to the serious Home County standard, and its members certainly know the game, but I am not sure they are going to do our girls any good in the real sense of the congenial and happy cricket for fun. With them, the joyous love of the game for sport and team spirit is sacrificed to the individual play. For a first visit to New Zealand the English team has made a tactical blunder in allowing individuals to monopolise the publicity and pile up trouncing scores and overawe the local girls, as certainly occurred with unfortunate results.

Men’s cricket has been ruined (like other sports) by player-newspaper writers and professional coaches, whose personal interests are paramount before the spirit of the game. The reporting of sport should be left to newspaper men whose profession it is—not to players with one eye on the match and the other on their playing prestige. The fact of players usurping the functions of newspaper reporters has led in the long run to other evils, serious, stodgy, selfish play, and eventually bodvline bowling and the inability to lose well and to all kinds of bitterness foreign to the meaning of “ sport.”

I hope women’s cricket will teach men the delight of sport for sport’s sake and undo the harm men have done by taking sport too terribly seriously (or fiercely). The girls have the chance to do the sick sporting world a service if the professional element is kept out, and I trust those directing the game will ponder well on the problem and choose the road which leads to true love of sport. Men are watching them and I feel sure the men will be taught a lesson. Therefore, while admiring the capabilities of the English women cricketers immensely, I say in all good spirit that it w r ould be better to have no more international tours for a period and leave the men to fight over games Exchanges of tours with Australia might be all right, but women’s cricket is doomed if the tragic element creeps in. The wonderful sporting spirit we read about before the team arrived may be there, but what I saw was too much like the wretched scrambling for shields and banners we have had in men’s sport.

This is written by a man who enjoys women’s cricket as a game and is intended in the interests of the sport.—l am, etc., MALE SPECTATOR.