Cyril Waiter Played Senior Hockey For 27 Years

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 5

Cyril Waiter Played Senior Hockey For 27 Years

i ±JtS sometimes remain in the public eye and affections for 20 or 30 years, but those taking part in the more vulgar and violent winter sports do not often survive more than a few seasons, because of injury, or the steadily increasing difficulties of becoming properly fit. One who defied these natural laws, year after year, and was the outstanding hockey player, C. V. Walter who began his senior career in 1934. and who announced his retirement at the start of the present season. Finest Cyril Walter, one of the finest players New Zealand hockey has produced, came into the game only through an injury sustained while playing Rugby at Christ's College. He remained, to become as provocative and interesting a figure in hockey as Tom Lowry was in cricket. He has not often been popular with hockey administrators, because of his firm adherence to the principles of the game as expounded by the Indians and Pakistanis, the players who have been the best in the world for the last 30 years and more. Although his belief in Indian methods has not gone unchallenged, and although his criticisms of playing standards and administration have brought him into conflict with some hockey

officials. Walter has an extraordinary record in the game. It is unlikely that there is any other New Zealander whose senior career spans 27 years; he also played for Canterbury from 1936 to 1943. for New Zealand University from 1934 to 1937, and then, in 1951. was appointed player-manager of the University team which toured Australia. Walter was captain of Canterbury on many occasions, and led New Zealand in 1948. Between 1938 and 1948, Walter was usually a member of the Canterbury Hockey Association's management committee, and held the offices of deputy-chairman and vice-president. He has been a Canterbury delegate to the New Zealand Hockey Association, has represented the umpires on the Canterbury association —he has a New Zealand A grade rating —he has been a Canterbury and New Zealand selector, a successful coach, a member of the New Zealand University hockey council, and for the last five years he has been hockey writer for “The Press.” But he confesses to being “utterly bewildered” when he was invited by a friend to first try his hand at hockey. He was with the Wesley club, in the junior grades, but when he joined University he went straight into seniors. Tn that first senior season, he was fascin-

ated by the skills of such players as Bruce Duffield, Eric Cooper, Doug McCormick, and the Bowden brothers, Norm, and Bill. It was the Indian team of 1935 which really set Walter to thinking deeply about the game, its skills and it's strategies. Today, even those who do not like his forthright expression of his views concede that he knows more about the game than almost anyone in the country, and that as a tactician he is almost without rival, too. This Indian team was. to Walter, a revelation; he was deeply impressed with its short-passing game, its ability to maintain possession, its stick-work. At that time there was a

climate of opinion and sympathy towards the Indian methods, but today that school of thought is often in shan> conflict with authority; at times, there is hostility towards it. But while the adherents of the Indian ways were in authority. Canterbury built up a fine record, and produced some fine teams. For Walter, the visit of an India-' team in 1988 merely underlined what he had discovered three years earlier. He had many long and earnest discussions with the Indians on the theory of hockey; for himself, he tried to model his play on that of Shahnoor Khan, the best centre-half he ever saw. Whin Walter led New Zealand for the first time in 1948, it was against the Australians, at Dunedin. The New Zealanders had not had £ practice together, and some of them were strangers to each other even when they went on to the field. New Zealand was beaten. 3-2. About a week later at Christchurch, Walter led Canterbury to a victory, 3-0, over the Australians. Master As a centre-half. Walter was a master of his craft. He was fast—until a few years ago—he had stick-work and control of the highest quality, he was noted for his coolness under pressure, and his ability to plan to meet a changing situation. Above all it was his ability to give an accurate pass when challenged, and with only inches of room in which to work, which made him outstanding. Walter believes the 1946 Canterbury team to be the best European side he has seen. He would back it, on its day, he says, to beat any team except India or Pakistan. Now he has left senior hockey, and the game will be the poorer for his loss. But no doubt he will remain a strong advocate of shortpassing hockey, in the Indian tradition. He is perhaps a perfectionist: so it has been claimed. He feels that many people in responsible hockey positions are quite ignorant ot the theory of the shortpassing game; that they have not studied it thoroughly, and that hard work is needed before any level of attainment in it can be reached. But if hockey is to progress, he feels, there must be a change of heart in the administration of the game. He may be right.