"ASSOCIATIC."

Shannon News, 11 July 1924, Page 4

"ASSOCIATIC."

CHINA'S POPUIiAR FEEIiD GAME. "JOHN" ASA RARRACKER. The cabled information that ifiae Chinese Soccer team is to tour New Zealand this season is now on its way to these shores will make happy read-, ing to all Soccer enthusiasts, also to the vast majority of New Zealanders who have not been privileged to wit-, ness a Chinese Soccer: team in action. That "John Chinaman" knew something about football h e demonstrated very forcibly last season when a team of players representing students of the Shanghai and South China-Universi-ties played a programme , of. some- ; thing like twenty-three matches in Australia and Tasmania, and scored just on 50 per cent wins. The record would possibly have been better were' it not that the Chinese do not take advantage of penalty kicks, and consider it unsportsmanlike' to score from unintentional breaches committed by their opponents. 1 It is only of recent years that the Chinese have appeared on the sporting map of tne world, and even now they are a long way from being regarded as loading lights. Tennis, I cricKet, and Soccer are the most popu-lar-of their outdoor games, and who, the Chinese pubuc Soccer is the greatest attraction. In Hongkong, where the South China team has been one of the leading team-, for years, thousands of Chinese attends the HappyValley racecourse each Saturday. But the Chinese barracker is a very different barracKer to our students at a King's-urammar College match at ISden Park. He just takes himself to the game—there is no charge for admission, otherwise he would probacy oe absent, as the poorer classes would probaDiy not possess enough wealth to get a post office "moneybox.. He has no sirens, clappers, or other weird instruments to Encourage his favourites. It is only when the Chinese players notch a goal.that he expresses

his approval, and then it is hot the good old British cheer, ~ut generally a chattering amongst his associates. player is rarely more than —.O. but he is-quick, heady, possesses pace, and knows all the points in the game, in many' instances having an English or Scottish coach. It is claimed that football is born in jsew zealanders, and to see small children kicking either a football or empty tins in the streets is taken as evidence tnat we are a race of footballers. Well, the Chinese boy do'es not do that sort of thing, possibly for the good and sufficient reason that he cannot get a football, and again tins m China are no doubt made use of in v other ways—it is said notning goes to waste with them. To play at "shuttlecock" is popular with the Chinese boys and they may •be seen in-" the streets any day kicking a "shuttlecock" which might b© styled the first lesson in Soccer. —Star.