FOOTBALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19504, 3 February 1926, Page 4

FOOTBALL

SU(3T TO SOCCE3 THE OLD CODE DYING OUT CHANGES IN WALES. An invasion of London that was without precedent took place recently. In the early hours of one Saturday morning between 9000 and 10,000 people left Swansea in a procession of excursion trains, and by 2.30 in the afternoon the vast majority was sitting or standing at Stamford Bridge, eagerly awaiting the kick-off in the Second League game between Chelsea and Swansea Town. This strikes me as one of the most remarkable sporting occurrences of recent times, says “A Rugby Follower” in the London “Daily Mail.” Imagine 10,000 men and women travelling from Wales to see a Soccer match. Less than 15 years ago, if anyone had ventured to make such a prophecy he would have been voted a madman.

It means, of course, that the Rugby code is slowly dying in Wales. Soccer, once despised, has taken its place. Swansea, the town that emptied itself, for years had the greatest Rugger side in the kingdom. It produced such wonderful players—to mention only a few —as Dicky Owen, W. J. Trew, Frank Gordon, Dai Rees, Ivor Morgan, Dick Jones, and the Bancrofts. In their heyday, and especially when the All Whites were meeting Cardiff or Llanelly, it was the custom for every workman to throw down his tools when the clocks struck one.

Before that it was the unimaginable pleasure of small boys to line the streets so that they could cheer the celebrated brothers James (sometimes in silk hats and frock coats) as they cantered past in a hansom cab on their way to the St. Helens ground. Ah, me, those were the days of unforgettable thrills! I recollect still the most tremendous that has yet come to me. It happened on an afternoon when I was selected to take out the lemons to the Swansea Rugby team. I can still feel the pat on the head that curJy-locked Evan James gave me as I handed him the plate. And now the St. Helens ground thinks itself lucky when it holds 5000 people. The Vetch Field, where the Soccer team plays, recently accommodated over 20,000! But what will Welsh Soccer crowds sing when they arc worked up? What songs, what dirges, what anthems will make more beautiful the air?

Who that was then*— 20 years ago on Cardiff Arms Park —will ever forget that electrifying moment when a crowd of 40,000 people suddenly burst into pulse-throbbing song as the up-to-then victorious New Zealand team trotted on to the field? It was like an enormous choir responding to a baton. I have heard much massed singing under even more dramatic circumstances —a Welsh regiment coming out of action, for example —but never anything that compared with that. Jt was the primary cause of the All Blacks’ only defeat. Dave Gallagher, who captained them, told me after the game that the effect on him was so great that the memory of the singing—it was a challenge, a defiance, a war-cry—was with him all through the play.