THE PARASITES OF SPORT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3730, 11 December 1906, Page 4

THE PARASITES OF SPORT.

Mr C. B. Fry, the famous cricketer, opened the P.S.A. gathering at Browning Hall, Walworth recently with an address on the “ Parasites of Sport.” When sport and games were wrong, he said, it was against the parasites of the games*they should speak drink- and gambling. When asked for a subscription to a Yorkshire football club, a gentleman replied that he could not give it, as owing to the amount of drinking now going on in connection with football he feared it would prove the downfall ot many young men. Again, a clergyman had written that “he hoped footballism would not nterfere with young Methodism.” Why should it ? asked Mr Fry. It was the drinking and gambling connected . with it. No man could hope to succeed and be proficient in athletic sport who drank. Men were successful for a time and dropped out. Drink was itself a kind of poison, and when it became a habit the result was plain. Sport was not a mere matter of brute force ; there was the intimate connection between brain and muscle, and a man who drank began to lose this, and missed his path, and had to think instead of doing what he ought to do (in the game) sub-consciously. But it was not really the players, but the people who went to see the matches of whom he was thinking. It was really terrible that a great event should be made the occasion of so much drinking. After the match the public houses were filled. He had said formerly that football kept people out of the public houses, but he was wrong. Those present were not of that kind, but they could exercise their influence with others. As to gambling, it was a touchy subject. He did not himself bet or gamble, but had not been able to, see that a simple wager was wrong, and he had said so to one whom he was proud to call his friend—Mr Will Crooks. (Doud Cheers.) Mr Crooks had replied: “If you saw the terrible amount of evil it caused —the ruined homes —you would think of your example!” Mr Fry pointed out that bookmakers made a large amount of money; it was not their business to let others make money. At the close Mr and Mrs Fry were loudly cheered by a crowd outside the hall as they drove off in their motor-car.