The Parasite of Sport.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9, 1 September 1906, Page 34

The Parasite of Sport.

Mr Guy Thorne, author of “When it was Dark,” writes in “C. B. Fry’s Magazine” with a very straight and stern talk on sport and drink. Nearly every good thing has its parasite, and he is in no doubt about the parasite of modern sport. He says:—‘The more popular games of England are being disturbed and discredited in a marked manner by the plain, vulgar excess in alcohol which surrounds them. A great number of sportsmen know* this perfectly well, and genuinely deplore it; but I am not aware that the subject has been properly ventilated as yet, save perhaps by ‘temperance’ cranks, and prejudiced or ignorant people, who hide a polemic Puritanism under the banner of a misused word.” He traces the effect on football:—“A blue book of statistics of crime for 1904 has just been issued. From it I find that drunkenness is greatest in the great football centres of the North and of Males. The thirstiest parts of the country are those in which football is the most eagerly played and watched, where the man in the street is a football expert.” He quotes a North-coun-try baronet, a famous sportsman in his day, an ex-Minister. Who said that in his district the abuse of drink was ruining the local sport. “Decent people no longer care to attend football matches.” he says, “the element of drink and ruffianism is becoming too much in evidence. A new class of spectators has Wen created, men who care little or nothing for the sport itself, but who use a match as a mere opportunity and an excuse for drinking." Golf, too, has not eseaped. Many of the golfing clubs, he says, are little better than shebeens for comfortable over-indulgence in drink. In many of the smaller golf clubs drinking has almost destroyed the game itself. Pugilism is another sport which is being ruined and degraded by drink. He says:—"How often do we not observe that a sportsman has a brilliant public career for a time, and then suddenly disappears from the first rank—‘drops out,’ and is no more heard of? His sporting life is brilliant, but it is short. Nevertheless, in to o many cases, the athlete unconsciously shortens his sporting career by the too free use of alcohol. He of all people can least afford to overstep the bounds of strict moderation, yet tne comradeship of sport, its jolly, social side, brings with it great temptations, and temptations which are daily increasing.” As to the ' effect on the sportsman’s brain, this is his argument: : —“The. athlete, the true sportsman, depends as much upon the condition of his brain for success as upon the condition of his body. At a critical moment iu a game (let. us say) the cerebellum, or ‘little brain,’ fails for a single instant to transmit its message, via the nerve telegraphs of the body, to. the motor muscles.’ The catch is missed, the pass m made half a second too late, the extra dose of alcohol has disorganised the accurate execution of muscular action, and perhaps a match is lost, a sportsman's career stefimiely injured.” 1