“GLORIFICATION OF SPORT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 553, 4 January 1929, Page 10

“GLORIFICATION OF SPORT”

CRICKET ON CHRISTMAS DAY With all my fondness for cricket and other manly sports, I find it impossible to get in tune -with cricket on Christmas Day (writes A.D.C. in the Christchurch “Sun.”) One does not need to be assertively religious to feel that Christmas Day is so special an occasion, of such tremendous significance in the history of man, as to be absolutely unfitted for any glorification of sport. Even men who are not known to have any religion at all and who are keen on cricket, are known to feel some repugnance to sport on such a day. True, some of them get to Lancaster Park on Christmas afternoon, but they do not seem very enthusiastic about it. And some of them seem half-ashamed at making others work so that they may see a game on Christmas Day. The curious aspect of it all, though, is that in this city of churches there has been so little expressed opposition to cricket or any other sport on Christmas Day. There have been protests in less godly places. Cricket on Christmas Day has been an accepted thing in Christchurch for so many years that any appeal against it would not willingly be upheld by the umpire. But that acceptance dates from tho days when cricket was the ruling sport in public favour in the summer. It will be interesting to see whether, as other summer sports grow in popularity, our cricket administrators will find it advisable to pay a little more attention to sentiment and public feeling.