Lures of League

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 275, 10 February 1928, Page 10

Lures of League

WARATAH FOOTBALLERS DECLINE BIG OFFERS TO PLAY PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL IN ENGLAND

NEPIA’S LITTLE JOKE RECALLED Agents of the English Rugby League were busy with tempting offers to the Waratahs when their British tour was drawing to an end. But, like the All Blacks, none of the New South Welshmen could be persuaded to affix their signatures to that “dotted line.” Jack Ford, considered the best forward seen in England since Morrie Brownlie, was offered £1,500 down, and a fat salary. Greatorex, who is one of the few newspaper reporters who have had the time to give to football, was offered £I,OOO, and a job on a North of England sporting paper, but like his rugged comrade, the crimsoncrested Sydneysider preferred to stick to the Union code. ALL BLACKS TEMPTED The 1924 All Blacks preserved their ranks intact against the advances or the persuasive gentlemen with the “good oil” from Lancashire and Yorkshire, although players like Cooke, Nepia, Brownlie, Richardson and Parker were much sought after. Nepia, who was the “.baby” of the team, did give some show of interest in the blandishments of the Leaguers, but the agents of the 13-a-side code awoke to the fact that their legs had been badly pulled by the cheerful young Maori, when he naively announced that his price was £20,000!

“Never Prayed For Victory Over Enemy ”

“Tiger” Flowers, the negro boxer who died in New York recently after a minor operation for the removal of a growth over the left eye, was a unique character in the modern prizering. At the time of his death he held the world’s middle-weight title. Way down South “Tiger” was a deacon at a little negro church, and when engaged in contests in various parts of the country always carried a pocket Testament from which he read daily. But, though a religious man, Flowers never prayed for victory over “the enemy.” His explanation of this was quaintly simple. “I might meet a better and stronger man than I, and lose the fight,” he once said. “Then I might be tempted to doubt the Lord, so I always wait, and when the fight is over I give thanks for the strength that brought me safely through.”