FOOTBALL AND THE WAR.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 January 1915, Page 3

FOOTBALL AND THE WAR.

C/olouel Brown, aji aide-de-camp oi ilia Majesty, recently, according to the Church Times, made an appeal to a great football crowd at Chelsea, "As u soldier, i usk you," he said, "1 am iiot saying 'go'; 1 sny "oome, , your country needs you." And when ho said "come," ho meant that they were to follow him. Ho had boon at tho .front since tho war" began and was returning thither on the morrow, "for the scone where my elder boiy has already died a glorious death for hits country." The gallant Colonel's words wore drowned by a mighty roar, but this was not a shout of approval ind sympathy, but of wetaoino to tho Chelsea and Notts football teams who had just arrived , . Then enthusiasm awoke, the vast crowd was tense with excitement as the fortunes oi the game developed and- the gallantry and endurance of our brave fellows out there in tho trenches were clean rorgolfcen. Of all those 30,000 spectators one solitary man gave in his name. In burning words tho i'oet Laureate has denounced spectacular professional football at such a time as this as an "intolerable humiliation'.' And such, indeed, it is. The habit that has taken possession of the industrial masses of looking on at these professional contests has undermined the spirit of patriotism They cannot forego the excitement of these spectacles, and it has become a public duty faq forbid any more matches. Perhaps it would then appear to those infatuated enthusiasts that there must be something amiss if tho puollc safety demands the suspension of professional football, and that, instead of boing looker.s-iou at a game, they themselves ouglitrto take an active part in a eonlife and death, in which they, thdyr families, their King and their country and Empire arc now involved.