POLITICS AND RUGBY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 995, 11 June 1930, Page 10

POLITICS AND RUGBY

NELSON RUGBY UNION’S ATTITUDE RESENTED MR. S. DEAN HITS OUT Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. “I tak© strong exception to the attitude of the Nelson Union,” said Mr. S. S. Dean, chairman of the Management Committee of the New Zealand Union to-night, when the discussion at the Nelson Union meeting with regard to the British team’s inability to play at Nelson was referred to him. "In the first place the matter was left with the union to arrange with Mr. Baxter, and it may be mentioned that there was a strong protest before the British team left Ungland against this match being played at all. However, I took the matter up with Mr. Baxter when he arrived here, and found that he had definite instructions from the authorities at Home not to play the Nelson match. I put the position to him and he said he would consult the team. He did so, and they agreed that they would play at Blenheim. However, Mr. Max came over to Wellington and was met by the Hon. H. Atmore —and here I would like to say that I consider politics should play no part in football—and asked me to introduce him and his associates as a deputation to Mr. Baxter. I told Mr. Max that Air. Baxter had already decided, and that I did not think there was much change of altering his decision. However, I introduced the deputation, and Mr. Atmore spoke at length on the claims of Nelson, and was followed by the other speakers, Messrs. Max and Walker. Mr. Baxter said he could not play the match at Nelson, and told the deputation that the matter had been put to the team, which had agreed to 'go round the corner’ and play at Blenheim. This, I certainly thought, was a happy solution of the difficulty. "I strongly resent Nelson's attitude in the suggestion that I am a despotic, arrogant autocrat,” said Mr. Dean. “I would like to draw the union’s attention to the point that only last year all the unions comprising the Seddon Shield district expressed personal confidence in me as chairman of the Management Committee, and this at the instigation of the Nelson Union, and expressed appreciation for what I had done for country football in general. How then can they reconcile their present attitude? Imperial tours such as the present visit of t.he British team are beyond parochialism, they should be looked on from a wide national aspect. The Management Committee, in acting as it did, accepted Mr. Baxter’s proposal as a happy solution of a difficult problem. As sports, I have no hesitation in saying that the members of the Nelson Union ought to be satisfied with the sporting attitude Mr. Baxter has adopted in view of the definite instructions he received before leaving the Old Country.”