STRENUOUS FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 223, 20 March 1914, Page 7

STRENUOUS FOOTBALL.

SOME ENGLISH INSTANCES. Football is played very strenuously in England (says the London correspondent of the Sydney "Sun.") If our Australian grounds were the scene of so many rough incidents every week there would he a public outcry which would probably induce the police' to intervene. Never a day passes on which important matches are played without one or more of the players being serWusly injured, if not incapacitated for years. The special committee which managed the Olympic Fund had daily evidence of the vigorous nature of English football in the persr-i of their secretary, Lieutenant Blair. A stronger-built, better-proportioned man never entered a football field. Yet in'an International he was found lying on the "round after a hard scrum, and to-day is a cripple, whose Iww refuse to support him, and who has to hobble about witn strong sticks. A professional . who is paid £3 10s a woeek in and out i-f season is not receiving princely remuneration when you remember the risks that

lie runs. A case came into the; Courts a few days ago, in which Frost, a niemliev oE the Millwell team, who sustained an injury to his knee in January last year, claimed under the Workmen's Compensation Act that he was entitled to'support from the club. It was admitted that he bad received the injury while in the club's service, but it was contended that, being 32 years of age. he had passed bis prime as a footballer, and must, in the ordinary course of things, be regarded as a "lias-been. Evidence was tendered that not one man in a thousand is able to play in firstclass football in England after reachin" 30 vears of age. Competition is becoming keener, and clubs are demanding younger men. At the last moment the club repented its disposition to cut Frost adrift and generously agreed to pav bim fl' a week until bis knee >•* sound again, ami he can obtain other employment.