RIVAL DEPUTATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 408, 17 July 1928, Page 11

RIVAL DEPUTATIONS

RUGBY UNION AND LEAGUE REQUESTS FOR GROUNDS AT ONEHUNGA Deputations from the Auckland Rugby Union and Rugby League were invited to attend the meeting of the Onehunga Borough Council last evening to discuss the question of allotting additional football grounds on the Onehunga Recreation Reserve. Mr. A. E. Rhodes, chairman of the League, made a request for a playing ground on the reserve and so be placed on the same footing as other codes. Mr. E. J. Phelan said that if the council would agree to subsidise £1 for £1 any sum the Patriotic Association might provide for the improvement and enlargement of the playing areas on the reserve, and the work given to returned soldiers, he would undertake to see that the amount would be forthcoming. Cr. Speight, chairman of the Re-, serves Committee, suggested that if the league would wait until next season, there was every probability that the council would be in a position to provide a ground. The Mayor said that the league’s application for a ground earlier in the season had been overlooked, and the only grounds available had been already allotted to the Manukau and Onehunga Football Clubs, who had guaranteed that they would be fully used. When the league officials retired, the Rugby Union officials were received and were asked by the Mayor whether they could spare a ground for the league players. Mr. H. Frost said that the union required the three 'grounds already allotted. It had to provide for playing areas for 116 teams each Saturday in its distric.t which stretched from Swanson to Papatoetoe, and playing areas were so limited that it was found necessary in many cases to play two matches on the same ground each Saturday afternoon. The question was deferred for consideration in committee.

Permission was given the Manukau Football Club to make an entrance charge to the recreation reserve for a football match against the Grammar Old Boys Club on July 28,