A CITY AT PLAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 15

A CITY AT PLAY

SPORT IN AUCKLAND DIVERSITY OF INTERESTS Diversity is the keynote to sport in = Auckland. In most parts of the Dominion, Rugby football in the winter, j and cricket, tennis and athletic sports j in the summer, hold the balance of power. Rugby is the New Zealander’s ; national game, but not the Aucklander’s. The League game can claim at 1 least an equal, if not a greater, share , of public patronage in Auckland, and Association football is a strong rival to both. From a playing point of view, cricket is firmly entrenched. Auckland ranks at present as the premier cricketing ( province of the Dominion, but the attendance of the public is comparatively small. In Australia, every boy is a cricketer—a budding Trumper or an embryo Ponsfor-d. Every back-yard is a cricket pitch, and nearly everybody is a cricketer—of sorts. When the leather-lunged barracker on the Sydney Cricket Ground raises his voice to the heavens, he generally knows what he is talking about. His knowledge of the game is no less remarkable than his keen and penetrating wit. In Auckland, we lack this national atmosphere. The average Aucklander is not tied to any one sport. Many winter sports enthusiasts alternate between Carlaw, Eden and Blandford Parks during the season, forming their own opinions on each game, and de-, monstrating a keen critical appreciation of the merits and demerits ot the three codes. Decidedly, the Aucklander is cosmopolitan in his tastes in sport. The Call of the Sea In summer, as like as not, you will drop across these devotees of winter sports in “baches” at Rangitoto or a dozen-and-one week-end resorts round the coast; you may pass them, tanned by wind and sun, on the broad reaches of the Waitemata and out in the Gulf itself, glorying in the sway and surge of their white-winged craft in a spanking breeze. There is the best part of a thousand small craft in Auckland, ranging from ocean-going yachts to mere cockleshells. And for the hundreds regularly engaged in handling small craft on the harbour and round the coast, there are thousands more who make the beaches and outlying bays and inlets their weekend rendezvous. It is from the competitive point of view that the summer games in Auckland are strongest. In bowling alone, there are over five thousand registered players in the Auckland Province—a third of the bowling population of the Dominion. In cricket, tennis and swimming, it is much the same story. It is the player, and not the spectator, that makes the game. Perhaps it is better so. The days when the jostling thousands streamed over the rickety old Grafton Bridge to a sports meeting at the Domain are gone. Nowadays they are packed in trams, buses and motors, bound for Ellerslie and Alexandra Park. Racing has a universal appeal, at least. A GO,OOO crowd has been known at Ellerslie. To some extent, the centre or athletic activity has shifted. The schools and colleges have made great progress in fostering all branches of sport, and the meeting of the champion college fifteens at Rugby during the season is one of the events of the year. From a competitive point of view, there is no outdoor gathering which can compare with the annual children’s sports at the Domain, where thousands of happy youngsters take part in the schools’ track and field competitions. Another branch of sport which has made wonderful progress, is the Girls’ InterHouse Sports movement, which caters for the athletic activities of the business girls of the city. The annual sports at Carlaw Park this year were a remarkable tribute to the growth of a comparatively new sports movement. The City's Contribution To the far-sightedness of the pioneers of modern Auckland, the city [ owes the Auckland Domain, the playground of the people. From time im- ! memorial, the Inner Domain has been a notable convincing ground for champion athletes, and athletic gatherings on a large scale. Cricket and Rugby football have both shifted their headquarters to Eden Park, and other sports bodies control their own grounds, but the Domain is still the main standby for sport of all kinds. The provision of tepid baths is another of the city’s contributions to the health and pleasure of its citizens, and an example of municipal enterprise that might well be extended to golf, one branch of sport in Auckland which possesses less community interest than any other. The spread of golf in late years has been world-wide. It is no longer a badge of class in the social world, nor yet again a game for the “old buffers,” as it was once contemptuously termed. But in Auckland it has made no great progress as a popular sport. Clubs are few and fees are high. The game is beyond the reach of the average man. Municipal golf links, which have been so successful in other places, would supply a long-felt want.