Soccer Men Keen

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 942, 8 April 1930, Page 7

Soccer Men Keen

BRIGHT SEASON’S PROSPECTS

Uncertainty of Club Rankings

SOCCER is in the air with greater enthusiasm than has ever been known at the start of the season, and the round ball was on the bounce in many open spaces lasi Saturday. Keen club committeemen are on the look-out for new talent, and aspiring juniors are perspiring in their attempts to catch tlie selectors’ eyes for promotion to senior rank and the added thrill of playing before the crowd. The controlling authorities are busy mapping out the season’s menu and providing the crowd of new recruits with the best means available for giving them all a game.

CLUB’S UNCERTAIN POSITION Some of the clubs are suspended, like Mohammed’s coffin, between earth and heaven, being uncertain whether they will appear in the fierce light th beats about the senior A grade, or have * > l>content with the more subdued atmosphere of the senior i; uiv.si ,<> battle their way back to pro. . The entries for all the higher will close on Tuesday next. .”>«! flu classification by the Board of Control and the divisional committees win o. no easy task. The results of their decisions is awaited with anxiety by th - clubs and players in the doubtful position referred to. and several star players’ colours will depend on whether their old club ranks in the top or lower division.

LAST YEAR’S CHAMPIONS In spite of summer rumours of the Tramway veterans, bidding good-bye to all that and disbanding with the ' triple laurels of championship. Chatham Cup, and Falcon Cup still green , on their brows, the transporters are very much alive, and kicking as merrily and cleverly as ever. The familiar personality of Mr. Sid Drew as 1 club manager will be missing this ' year, but Mr. F. Hankins should prove an equally popular and efficient man at the wheel to steer the club to many more victories. All last year’s players will be available except Clem Bell, who has just undergone an operation for appendicitis, and will be a few weeks in the repair shed. Freddy Davis is turning out again, while Riddolls, from Christchurch, is expected to prove a useful recruit, but much more interest is centred round a new arrival from Scotland, a young player named Mills, who is whispered about as another Murray Kay as a Flying Scotsman on the outside, left berth. The transporters are quietly loosening up for a strenuous season, and some of the younger combinations will need be fitter than they were last season to bump the “Trammie#” off the track to victory.

YOUNG MENS GREAT HOPES The Y.M.C.A. turned out one of the : strongest of the senior teams last year, | and its back division was equal to any j of the clubs. The weak spot was the j target work of the firing-line, and games cannot be won without goals, j That weakness would seem to be well j cured in this year’s front ranks, as \ Murray Kay and Tommy Chalmers j have both signed up for Y.M., and with 1 the same solid defence the enthusias- I tic Director Don Miller wears a broad j smile when j'ou talk Soccer prospects 1 with him. Hilliard, Mowat, Chapman, Malcolm and Ross are all young players who will improve rapidly with so fine a front line ahead of them. Finding a working partner for Kay. and a winghalf behind him, is not easy, and a Shore senior from the inside position may possibly don the red, black and j gold livery if Whalley does not fill the j bill. Y.M. has already been jogging ! over the Outer Domain, and doing some gym. setting up work, and the' team should be in the pink when the first kick-off sounds. PONIES’ PROMISING PROSPECTS Ponsonby struck a rather lean paten last season, and suffered, temporarily, from the depredations of poachers. But it benefited by bringing out its promising juniors. This year MoCosfi has returned tq his first love, and his cool heady play should do much to consolidate the defence, and with Bentley and Petersen from Onehunga available with last year’s defenders. the Ponies’ rearguard should be a very solid one. Whimster. the star of Onehunga’s front line, has also cast in his lot with the western suburb, and should make a fine partner for Bob Innes. Huston Stewart will again be the pivot, and the left wing will be formed from three promising colts in Napier. Ward and Pearson. THISTLE’S GAINS AND LOSSES Last year Thistle carried one of the most penetrative attacks in Auckland, but the loss of Kay and Chalmers in the firing line will rob it of much of its former terror. Stretton, from Trams, is spoken of as Kay’s successor, and 1 Grant will be a capable follower in Chalmers’s berth. McCosh lias returned to Ponies, but Geordie Wright will be a bustling and vigorous pivot i in the centre-half position. : The Scots have also some new re- ! emits from the Old Dart whose Soccer j ability is well vouched for, and much ! curiosity has been excited as to ! whether they will shape up t<»* tlu* i high standard set by Thistle in past ; seasons. A SHORE-NAVAL MYSTERY I The plans of the naval brigade are of j a mysterious nature, and so far the silent service has said nothing about its intentions. Whether it will remain

a Philomel ciub, and be satisfied to decline promotion, or whether it will mobilise as a full senior naval team »> not yet announced, and the prospects of the Shore senior club will be largely determined by the naval tactics. Five or six of the warships* best Soccer exponents expect to be “landed as units of the depot staff, and Sharis said to h'ave enlisted such first-va’e players as Luke. Wilkes. Clarke and Tito, in which case Shore would field very powerful eleven with the best «.i its old seniors again available. Bu: until the entries and classification the clubs next week is made public, the fate of Shore must remain uncertain. CLUBS IN DOLDRUMS Onehunga has suffered severe loss* in transfers to City clubs, but i> battling hard to keep a full senior eleven in the field: a number’of promising juniors will now get a chance-of pro motion, and the Manuka u side wih benefit in the long run by encouraging its own local talent. Celtic is also re lying mostly on last vear's eleven, and drawing on its juniors to fill any vacancies. Manurewa will field most of last year’s lively combination, and its career as a senior combination will bwatched with great interest.