THE CHEQUERED CAREER OF G. DONALDSON

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31116, 20 July 1966, Page 11

THE CHEQUERED CAREER OF G. DONALDSON

QHIRLEY-NOMADS’ centre a half, G. Donaldson, has passed through many and varied phases since, as a youngster playing in the back streets of Dundee, he dreamed of wearing the blue of Scotland at Hampden Park. That dream never materialised but he did, later, play as a professional for the

English League club, Derby County, and also in that hive of talented players, Scottish junior football. When Donaldson emigrated to New Zealand some five years ago soccer drifted to the back of his mind, and for 18 months, while he lived in the North Island, he did not play. Only when he came to Christchurch did he polish up his boots once more, and in 1963 he was the outstanding player in the Nomads team that swept all before it locally and went on to the national final of the Chatham Cup, losing, 3-1, to North Shore at the Basin Reserve. That year, also, he was chosen Canterbury’s “Soccer Player of the Year” and until September of the same year he was one of the few players automatically selected for the provincial team. And it appeared that things would go on the same way for some years to come. But suddenly, when ha was at the peak. Donaldson

found himself cast into the wilderness. The following season he did not regain his place in the Canterbury team, and it began to look as if Donaldson's representative career had come to an end. Now, nearly three years later, the Scot Is once more in Canterbury’s team. He has been recalled at centrehalf for next Saturday’s Jones Cup match against Otago at Dunedin. His recall could not have come at a better time. Two months ago his club had languished at the bottom of the first division and so poor then was its record, notwithstanding the ability being shown by some of the younger players, it seemed that Shirley-Nomads (in the first year of the amalgamation of Nomads and Shirley B.H.S. Old Boys) would

spend next season In the second division. If one man has been responsible for Shirley’s dramatic late run, which has brought the club 10 paints in its last eight games and taken it out of the danger zone; that man is Donaldson. In match after match Donaldson, at centre-half, ‘has blocked the way through the middle, aided by his Canterbury colleague, A. Hawthorn, the energetic D. Ennis and the fine goal-keeping of H. Westernberg. This season, too, Donaldson took over the coaching of the club, after the departure of R. Batchelor to the North Island, apd it was to him the dub looked to harness the raw talents of his young side at a time when the confidence of these youngsters was at its lowest ebb.

Donaldson has succeeded when many thought the task was beyond even his abilities. He has pleaded, encouraged, cajolled and shouted: and at all times he has set an inspiring example. Shirley can now go forward, content that it has time to build for the future without having to sink into the second division to do it, as New Brighton have done so magnificently this season. And Donaldson can go forward, too, in a Canterbury team that has only one pur pose this season: whether it wins or loses against Wellington and Otago—tn bring back the English FA trophy to Christchurch when it challenges Auckland for it on August 21. If Donaldson must soon permanently bow out of representative football, there could be no more fitting finale for him, than to share in the winning of the E.F.A. Trophy.