A.I.F. AT FOOTBALL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 6

A.I.F. AT FOOTBALL

ALL RANKS LEVELLED IN MUD. “IMPOSSIBLES” VERSUS “IMPROBABLES.” Australian soldiers in Britain played their first football game of the season recently on a typical village green near headquarters where they are camped. “The match,” says the official war correspondent (Mr Kenneth Slessor), “was between, the ’impossibles’ and the ‘improbables,’ but it might better have been called ‘singlets over” versus ‘singlets under.’ The players all wore regulation dark blue army sweaters and had arranged their singlets in the manner indicated to distinguish between the teams. "But there was a good deal more diversity in the matter of pants, which ranged from tropical shorts* to khaki ‘long-uns.’ As for boots, I counted 14 pairs of the formidable army pattern flying in the rucks. “After a good deal of preliminary argument and expostulation during which New South Welshmen and Queenslanders almost came to blows with Victorians and South Australians in defence of their rival codes, it was agreed to play Australian rules. Several hardened' Rugby enthusiasts left immediately with a sneer on their faces while a group of Soccer partisans watched gloomily. “However, despite the players’ lack of recent training, the game was fast and exciting and the ‘improbables’ won by a margin of 11 points. It was a curious mixture of all four Australian codes, since the Rugby diehards stubbornly insisted on tackling and the Soccer players on dribbling. “As a result of the troops’ present physical fitness, with which they are almost bursting, the game started at a terrific pace but soon slowed down. Crowds of British Tommies and villagers looked on with astonishment, for this is a fanatical Soccer zone and it was the first game of Australian rules they had ever seen. “Apart from anything else, the match demonstrated the happy democracy of the A.1.F., since officers were sat on impartially by privates or had their chins ground in the mud, while officers in their turn kicked privates’ shins or laid sergeants low. “All ranks are levelled in fact on the football field and games of this kind do a lot to make the men feel they are a team of comrades together, whatever their pips or stripes.”