LET US HAVE CLEAN FOOTBALL.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 November 1925, Page 4

LET US HAVE CLEAN FOOTBALL.

1 (Bishop Weldon in “Hail yMail.”)

Football is the great popular democratic game. It is not so scientific as cricket, but gives a larger amount of exercise to a great number of players at a lower cost- and in less time. Add Die element of excitement and one can readily understand why it is so popular abroad. English sport used once to excite the wonder of foreigners. I remember bow, when J. was Headmaster of Harrow School. a- foreign educationist wrote, me a series of questions, one of iheni being “What is the moral value of ‘the football’ F” as lie called it. But to-day British athletes are often .sorely u'ied and not seldom beaten, not only by the Dominions blit by foreign couniries.

Football, and still more Association football, has become a world-wide sport, i have seen the goal-posts .standing outside the city of Santiago under the majestic shadow of the Andes. 1 have watched a football match, which was naturally played at a late hour of the

evening, upon the Equator. I have read that football matches are becoming formidable rivals to bull-fights in Spain. JI Association football should destroy or gravely impair the popularity of the bull-ring it would achieve a triumph beyond the power of humanitarian sentiment of Christian cilivisation in Spain. There is. however, a danger that Association football will lose its traditional integrity. Where the base love of money comes in. the true lovo ol sport goes out. It is, ] think, a serious evil that football players should be allowed to qualify so easily for particular clubs, as the value of matches between clubs, representative of different cities or counties, depends in a large degree upon the genuinely local origin or dwelling-place of tiie players. 15nt the evil which threatens to corrupt and lestrov Association lootball lies in the bribing of players to forfeit victory. This evil is so insidious that nothing except an enlightenment of public opinion will end it.

I shall, T ‘hope, he forgiven if I plead that- football may bo played all oyer the British Isles ami the British Empire by an increasing number of British youths, but that it may he played honourably in tho true sporting spirit.