HOCKEY GAME’S SERIOUS PLIGHT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 9

HOCKEY GAME’S SERIOUS PLIGHT

’I’ITE inadequacy of playing areas for winter sport in Auckland forms a graver problem each year. But the harmful effect with which it threatens the hockey game at the present time is one of a seriousness unparalleled in previous seasons. With a quota of 500 men players the Auckland Iloekey Assoeiation is /starting its season to-morrow with eight ground* at its disposal, a meagre share indeed, far insufficient to provide for the number of players intending to take the field. It is a deplorable state of affairs which, if not improved immediately, pointedly suggests that in Auckland the game will lose its following and eventually dwindle from existence. Deprived of all the Remnera grounds which for so long had been the headquarters of the game, the association was forced to place full reliance on the Parks Committee of the City Council to provide playing areas. The method of allocating the grounds to the various sports bodies is one difficult to interpret and certainly does not appear to be actually steeped in “fair play. On two occasions the Hockey Association previously warned the Parks Committee of its serious plight and requested that in the allocating of grounds it would receive due consideration. This w-as promised, but when the time came hookey received one play area and that was an under-sized field at Victoria Park. L nion Rugby and League Rugby were allotted 17 grounds between them. To a deputation of hockey officials, the best that the members of the Parks Committee could offer was the bright suggestion that the association should approach the football bodies in an endeavour to secure some of their grounds. Such scant consideration as this calls for an immediate protest and the setting up of a. new body to revise the allocation of grounds and show no preferential treatment to any particular branch of sport. Comparing the number of hockey players in Auckland with those of the football codes it is evident that the Auckland Hockey Association has been unjustly treated in the allotting of the City Council’s playing grounds this season.