FASCISM AWAKENS NATIONAL VIGOUR

Shannon News, 20 December 1929, Page 3

FASCISM AWAKENS NATIONAL VIGOUR

Sport in Recent Years

One of the most striking manifestations of the reawakened national vigour in Italy is the development of sport in recent years (writes the Rome correspondent of The Times). The old type of habitual loafer in the cafe or wine shop is gradually passing away. The habits of mind and body implicitly admired in the traditional phrase 'Dolce far niente" have been sueceded by a diametrically opposite ideal. "Courage, fearlessness, the love of risk, repugnance to a pot bellied peaceful life, to be ever ready to dare in private as in public life, to abhor all that is sedentary" —such is the message which Signer Mussolini has preached and put so fully into execution in his own career. The very coinage has been utilised to drive home the same moral: ''Better one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep" is inscribed on the nod 20-lira pieces..

Examples of this spirit have been set in the most august quarters. All the members of the Royal. Family are noted for their bold horsemanship and for their love of sport. The Duke of the Abruzzi and '.he Duke of Spoleto have won world-wide fame as intrepid explorers. The Duke of Apulia is equally at home in an aeropane, on the lawn tennis court, at the wheel of a fast motor car, or leading a camel corps charge across the burning sands of the Sahara. . Signer Mussolini has been induced to curb his enthusiasm for flying, but he is still an ardent horseman, fencer and motorist. Signor Turati is never happier than when he has a ■sword or a foil in his hand. General Balbo is one of the-most fearless pilots in Italy,' and it would be difficult to overestimate the impulse given to Italian aviation by his bold leadership. Sport was widely practised in Italy before Facism. In mountaineering, cycling, and fencing the Italians have long excelled, and some of the climbing feats performed by the Alpini during the war made a great impression upon their colleagues of the Allied armies. The same may also be said of eki-ing, and it will be remembered that Captain Sora headed a party of Alpinists that accompanied the ill-fated Nobile expedition to the North Pole. From the very outset bicycles were received in Italy with an enthusiasm that has never died down. Pootball Since the War.

But since the war, sport, and more particularly games, have developed remarkably. In Italy, as elsewhere, the greatest in popularity has been won by Association football. The small clubs founded by foreigners resident in Genoa, Turin, and Milan between 189? and 1889 i have spread all over Italy. ThCltalian street urchin of Trieste, Rome or Palermo is just as heard as a London errand boy to dribble an empty sardine tin along the pavement. Several cities can now field teams capable of giving a good game to, and even of beating first-class professional British sides. At the Olympic Games held in Amsterdam the Italion National Eleven won third place, coming after Uruquay and Argentina. Rugby football is still in its infancy, but it has taken root, and if the Italians continue to make the same rapid progress that they have made already, it will not be long before they will be able to join France in disputing the laurels of the United Kingdom.

Like the French players, the Italian? have learned to play with great dash and energy, and considering the hardness of the ground on which the game is played, one can only wonder that mishaps are not .more frequent. Fortunately, however, the promoters of Eugby-football, such as Signor Giorgio Vaccaro and Signor Turati, Secretary of the Fascist Party, have realised that the game must b 3 strictly confined, as in Great Britain, to amateurs who can be trusted to play it in the right spirit of sportsmanship. When last year Mie first exhibition of Eugby football was given in Borne, pains were taken to ensure a large crowd of onlookers, and to explain to tkcan all the mysteries of the game. Before the match started a general address qn the game was given, and various permissible and prohibited points, such as tackling, passing forward, and so forth, were illustrate J by some of the players. During the actual match a running commentary was made through a loud speaker, so that epoetators could appreciate the stages of the game.

Lawn Tennis and Golf. Lawn tennis is rapidly growing in popularity, especially among tihe upper classes and among the students. It cannot be said that the average standard throughout the country is as yet very <high. This fact, however, only enhances the remarkable displays given by the Italian Davis Cup team last year when, under the leadersihip of Baron de Morpurgo, they triumphed in turn over the Rumanians, the Australians, tJhc British and the Czechcslovakians, before being finally vanquished by the Americans. Golf is little known outside the cities most frequented by foreigners, such as Rome, Florence or Palermo. There are, however, quite a number of useful Italian players, and now that Signor Mussolini has been in-

duccd personally to take ah'interest in the game, it may become more generally played. The former open champion of America, Gene Sarazen, is am Italian by birth, and after his recent exhibition match in Rome before t!he Duce, ihe mentioned his intention of- sending over a number of golf clubs in order to encourage the gaiae among the caddies.

If Italy was already in lino witih other countries in devoting more and more attention to sport of all kinds, Fascism was quick to see that here, at any rate, was a highly popular outlet for its energies. That sport should come more and more under the direct control of the State is only consonant with the "totalitarian" theory of government. Not the least striking feature of the new electoral law was that provision whereunder sport had its say in the original list of 1,000 parliamentary candidates submitted to tthe Fascist Grand Council. '•

One of the most striking symptoms of this tendency is'the movement for. Italianising, so far as possible, all sporting terms. The versatile Signor Marinetti has produced a dictionary of Italian terms for aviation. A member of the Rome Golf Club has translated into Italian the rules of the royal and ancient game, and if he has bean unable to find an equivalent for a "niblick" he has managed to translate such terms as "driving," "one-up," and "all square." Instead of knocking out his opponent, a boxer is said to "mandare alto petto" his adversary. A'' clinch'' becomes '' oohpo a corpo.'' "Football" is frequently described "II giuoco del Caleip d'angolo." Even the word "sport" itself is out of favour with some of the extreme Nationalists. The word "sport," it is now came to England from the French "desport" which in turn was derived from Italian '' diporto.'' A certain Giovanni Fassi has accordingly produced a sporting-dictionary in whien the use of the word "ddpporto" is urged upon all true Fascists. Italy paid a big to tha Anglo-Saxon ideas when she decided that the physical education of her sons should be based rather upon the' ,'t

" sporting system" of England than upon the "gymnastic systems" of Sweden and Germany. But there appears to be some danger lest that spontaneity whioh' is the essence of amateurism as opposed to profesadonalism may not be swamped by moral and other considerations. In a hand-book issued from the semi-official Lictorian Library, we read of the "banal' ariu agnostic formula" of "sport for sport's sake," which would "reduce the sporting education to an aimless pastime, to a game without a soul, to an empty spectacle." Sport," wo are told, means "a school of will power which prepares for Fascism the conscious citizens of peace, the heroic sol- 1 diers of war."