ASSOCIATION NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1728, 19 April 1913, Page 12

ASSOCIATION NOTES.

— 9 — ';. (By Centre-Hale.) The Navy and "Soccer." This afternoon the- Wellington Football Association will informally open its sensqn vrith a match between selected representatives of the various clubs 'ami a team of man-o'-warsmen from H.M.S. New Zealand. The. match is to be played oh His Basin Eeserve, and if the weather is clear and the ground in good order, tho spectators should have a good afternoon's sport. The warship is expected to send a hefty team ashbre, > and the local men will have no chance of getting cold feet. Quiet Years Ahead. ■ As regards the season's prospects, there is not a great deal to say' at present. Jfatters this year will not materially advance as compared with last year, and are not expected to until the local association's new ground at Miramar Isthmus is ready for playing. The top dressing is not fairly set yet, and the last big blow from tli-3 north levelled the new fence. This factor, taken in conjunction with the scarcity of sports ground in and around the city—a factor that is crippling all kinds of sport in Wellington at present— mokes it. impossible for the association to niovo forward with any degree of progress just now, however ready and able it may be-to advance—and no one can deny the" present vitality of its constitution and membership. Boom Your Clubs. During the coming season "Centre-Half" will be i;lad to receive and publish in this column jottings and notes from local and country clubs and outside associations. Local players and supporters of the "soccer game are always glad to hear of the progress mado in other districts, and tho rapid spread of tho Association game all over New Zealand wants to b? trumpeted from the house-tops as it were. Flayers and club secretaries must bo prepared to boom their game, and there is nothing like having alive member to act as a press correspondent to see that the club is not forgotten by the sporting public. The same apnlies to tho associations. Wo in Wellington want to hear now and then from Hajvko's Bay, Manawatu, Wanganui, Taranaki, and "elsewhere, about things in general. The stock reply of tho average man who is asked to send along a line or ro about his club's doings is; "What can [ write about?" But the man with tho inborn ir..-,linct for booming his club—and "Centre-Half" lias met quite a few of him —does not need any prompting. As a rule ho in not a player, but a club supporter, who believes in "barracking for lho boys." He is keen on -getting new blood for tho club, and letting the. public know it when ho finds it. He keeps an eagle eye. on the form of the players, marks the promising juniors, frowns -at tho slackness, and "rousts" like anything in tho "gym" after a. bad Saturday. There is .such a inan in every club. Ik is a zest, a stimulant, an lnvigorator. He is a. revivalist of tho hottest, kind, and what he wants to grasp now is that the most effective way of spurting along his favourite club is to boom it, criticise il; praise it, not only in the "gym," but in the little corner that. "Ontre-llalf" will bo pleased to rcscrvi) for 111 hi every JSatuvdtiy. All correspondence- will be regarded ius" strictly oouMiiuliul where anonymity is desired.