FOOTBALL NOTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8459, 8 June 1907, Page 3

FOOTBALL NOTES.

(By All-Black.) NEW ZEALAND TEAM IN AUSTRALIA. July 13, v. New South Wales, at Sydney. July 17, v. New South Wales, at Sydnev. July 20, v. Australia, at Sydney. July 24, v. Queensland, at Brisbane. July 27, v. Queensland, at Brisbane. August 3, v. Australia, at Brisbane. August 10, v. Australia, at Sydney. Mr Geo. Dixon, manager of the "All Black" team, figures out the total expenses of the professional team for England at £7,368, and shows that after the allowance, and a liberal estimate of the receipts, there would remain a margin of only £9Bl, say £I,OOO, divided between 28 men. It would yield a little over £35 per head, assuming the players and promoters share alike. The t3rms offered by the Northern Union are reported to be 32 or 33 matches, to be played on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with a guarantee of £SO for the Wednesday, and £IOO for the Satruday matches, an average of £75, per match. A football match was in progress, says a Dunedin paper, and the spectators were close to the playing area. A small boy watched with growing interest a becapped halfback carefully picking up infinitesimal bits of cocoanut shell, orange peel, etc., that a grasshopper could not possibly stumble over, and flinging them over the white-washed line. Whether the persistent and unnecessary display maddened him, or whether he thought such perseverance should be encouraged, will never be known, but the small boy yelled: "Hi! Kick that empty nut off the field." "Where is it?" asked the half-back, looking round. "Under yer cap!" came the reply. The crowd laughed. "They say that South Africa played a superior and cleaner game than the 'All Blacks' " (says R. L. Baker,the Sydney athlete now in England, in a letter to the Metropolitan Rugby Union, of Sydney). "1 fancy," he continues, "New Zealand 'sorted' thorn a bit too much," Sorted is good, Bernie Fanning, the old-time Linwood player, and Canterbury representative, turned out for his club last Saturday, and showed surprisingly good form. He received a great reception on taking the field. Some touch-line judges are remarkably poor judges of distance, but I notice that their own teams never lose by their errors. When will provision be made for the official appointment of touch-judges?—Christ-church comment. "Mona" Thomson has given the game best for all time. The injury which he sustained to his shoulder, as the outcome of a fall in the Wai-l-arapa-Wellington match last season, was more serious than many supposed, and its subsequent effects have influenced "Mona ' in quitting the Rugby arena, lest more serious consequences might follow.