POT-HUNTING IN SPORT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 242, 12 October 1937, Page 5

POT-HUNTING IN SPORT

ATTITUDE OF CROWDS BEHAVIOUR DURING SPRINGBOK TOUR CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 9. “I think that in the realm of sport far too much emphasis is placed on the winning and holding of trophies, both real and mythical. So we have personal pot-hunting, Ranfurly and Plunket shields, Bledisloe cup, fights for ‘The Ashes,’ and battles for the rubber,” said Mr. C. S. Thomas, president of the Christ's College Old Boys’ Association, at the annual dinner of the association last evening. Mr. Thomas criticised severely the attitude of sections of the crowds at matches during the tour of the Springboks, and mentioned their bad behaviour as evidence of the danger at present threatening the sporting instinct.

"The game itself ceases to be the main thing,” continued Mr. Thomas. "But the things that count are the game itself and the memories that linger long afterward. “Those should be the things we should seek to hold fast to—the essence—the very spirit of the thing. The sooner we get a race of sportsmen who frown on all the pot-hunting and frantic trophy chasing the better, and we’ll get it only if we teach our boys that real satisfaction is to be found in the game itself and not in the tumult and the shouting. "Quite recently New Zealand had a visit from one of the finest Rugby teams that has ever played the game. The Springboks gave us a series of shocks and a lot of thorough hidings, and they utterly destroyed the muchtreasured illusion that we were the champions of the world.

"Now, the point I wish to make is that while doing all this they showed us a delightful type of football. Did we, in the mass, appreciate this—did we applaud it wholeheartedly, and did we smile and say ‘You're too good for us?’ In the mass we didn't.

"At Lancaster Park during the second Test, that fine player Brand was openly booed while attempting a difficult kick at goal. The other day our old friend Mr. H. B. Lusk commented very strongly on the fact that, during the third Test at Auckland, the crowd cheered decisions in favour of New Zealand and booed those in favour of the Springboks. Mr. Lusk said that the most lamentable part of these incidents was that among those who booed were boys from secondary schools.

“This state of affairs is very distressing to anyone who cherishes the good name of New Zealand. Not only should our boys be taught the rules and the technique of the game, they should also be taught the spirit In which the game should be regarded by players and spectators.”