ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 55, 20 March 1937, Page 17

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL

PROBLEM OF REFQRM but tradition dies hard In no game in Britain is tradition so well preserved as in Association football, and it is on this account that reforms which seem necessary to fit modern conditions are so slow In coming about. In fact, the official attitude always seems to be "What was good enough for our forefathers ls good enough for us." When It was flrst suggested that players should be numbered in order that they might be easily identified, the diehards Irowned on the idea. It was pointed out that the greater pace at which the game was played had caused confusion in the minds of spectators, and they were entitled to assistance. At last the English authorities have been converted to this view, and they have proposed to Scotland that the players in the intenational match should be numbered. Scotland, however, immediately turned the idea down. Now it is proposed that this decision should be ignored, and that the English players should be numbered. It is unlikely that this plan will be carried out, but there is nothing in the rules to prevent lt. Scotland declare that their spectators do not require the aid of numbers to identify players. Those wiio sit in the favoured seats in the front row of the stands may perhaps put forward this claim, though even they must often be in considerable doubt as to the men concerned in incidents. As for those on the terraces wnich stretch a hundred yards or more from the pitch, they will be lucky if they obtain a proper view of the game. Hampton Park, Glasgow, the home of the famous amateur club, Queen's Park, is at present being enlargea to accommodate 150,000 people. One of the embankments has been carried considerably further back, and from this point the far goal- is 150 yards away. From this position the men will appear as midgets, . and, even by the ? aid of numbers, it would not be easy to identify them. Still the SQOttlsh authorities decline to study the interests of the public. In England, however, the principle of numbering players has at last been accepted and it is expqcted that the plan will be adepted fer the eup final at Wempley.