SOCCER TOPICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 7

SOCCER TOPICS

SEASON STARTS SATURDAY NORTH SHORE’S APPEAL All preparations have now been made for the start of the season on Saturday next, and players have been putting in a strenuous Easter getting fit for the fray when the first whistle sounds. The star attractions at headquarters will be the Ponsonby-Thistle tussle, which should provide a lively go, while the meeting between the senior A and B champions of last season in Trams-Manurewa, should be a bright clash between youth with bustle, and age with deliberation. The Shore Club has made an appeal to the New Zealand Council against the decision of the Control Board to promote Corinthians and relegate Shore. The appeal was forwarded promptly to Wellington by the A.F.A. and a decision should come early to hand. If Shore’s appeal is upheld it will not affect the draw except that Shore would replace Corinthians in the A division and vice versa. The contention of a writer that the appeal was “out of order” and should not have been allowed to go forward shows a lack of complete knowledge cf the A.F.A.’s constitution. The A.F.A. is an incorporated body, and also a branch of the N.Z.F.A., which is the final court of appeal in the Dominion. As an incorporated body, the Control Board of the A.F.A. has no power to determine whether it has broken its own rules and constitution or not. That would be manifestly absurd, and any player, club, or affiliated association has the right of appeal in such a case, and the local rule about “all matters coming within the power;- of

the A.F.A. does not apply in a case such as Shore’s appeal. SHORE’S CLAIMS The Shore Club appears to have good grounds for its appeal, as the rule under which the Control Board claims the right to grade any team entering in any division it chooses must be governed and determined by its resolution of April 9 last season, which states that a proposal “to relegate the two bottom teams in the A division and promote the two top teams in the B division was carried. There is no evidence that this resolution governing the grading rule ha. c ever been amended or rescinded, and the opinion of the senior division committee has no bearing on it. The functions of the senior committee are clearly defined, and grading the teamv is not one of them—for obvious reasons, if law and order is desirable. The Control Board did not strengthen its position by considering the irrelevant opinion of the senior committee. The whole dispute appears to hinge on whether a team which finishes third in a competition can rightly be regarded as one of the “two top teams,” and Shore should win its appeal. This will make the third occasion within the last few seasons on which the Shore Club has challenged the decision of the A.F.A. by an appeal to the New Zealand Council, and the ! two previous appeals went in the club’s I favour, although the local management i was confident of securing the verdict. In both those cases, the same plea of a “domestic matter,” in which the A.F.A.’s decision is final, was put up locally, but the Shore Club persisted in its appeals and won out. It ie the proper and constitutional medium of testing things and far better than declaring a strike or a breakaway. SYMPATHY WITH SHORE Much sympathy has been expressed with the Shore Club in its treatment and it has received many hopes of success in its appeal. The Shore Cloub is easily the oldest in the code in Auckland, if not in the Dominion, for continuous appearance in the Soccer code. It is well over forty years ago that it started, and a feature of the club’s work has been the manner in which it has fostered the game among the boys, both in its own junior teams and in the local schools at Devonport. Its average membership for the past 20 years has been nearly three figures, with seven and sometimes eight teams engaged in the season, and it has maintained two local grounds for Soccer for 40 years past. The Chatham Cup is the only club honour of any note which it has not won. having been narrowly defeated four seasons ago in the final in Wellington. The Corinthians, who have been given preference in seniority, is a one-team club which was formed only last season, and has no connection with the old Corinthian Club which starred players like Dugmore, Foresliaw and Ned Sale early this century, and ran several junior teams. A further delegation from the Shore Club is waiting on the A.F.A. tonight in hope of a settlement in a friendly way and a withdrawal of the appeal. The Shore committee has been reconstituted, and it is hoped to regain its former prominence in the game, but relegation would probably be the beginning of the end for the club.