TROOPS AT PLAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1940, Page 2

TROOPS AT PLAY

NEW ZEALAND FORCES VERSUS ALDERSHOT .Dl'-X HEARTENING DISPLAY GIVEN. SOME NOTABLE PLAYERS. (From the Official War Correspondent attached to the New Zealand Forces in Great Britain.) SOMEWHERE IN BRITAIN. September 16. Recent unexpected changes in the training and service programme of the N.Z.E.F. (U.K.) have interfered with games fixtures. Nobody complains of that; sport is only incidental to our presence in this country, and all hands would much rather get on with the real job that be kept hanging about playing cricket or tennis. None the less, it would have been a pleasure to have visited the Australians’ camp for the return cricket match, now postponed and likely to be abandoned for this season, because of graver things to concern the two sides. The New Zealand team for this match would have been slightly stronger, on paper, than that which beat Australia at the first meeting. Also it would have been more experienced. Many of our regular players hardly had a bat in their hands last season, and some in the team had not played regularly for several seasons. None the less, it gave a very heartening display against the Aidershot Command just before we left the base camp. The Command XI (in which normally Eric Tindill would have been keeping wickets) included two English internationals —B. H. Valentine and A. L. Gover —former captains of Yorkshire and Oxford University—A. B. Sellers and M. IVI. Walford —a Cambridge Blue, another Oxford Blue, and three other county players. Against such talent it was a noteworthy performance to play a creditable draw. Command declared at the tea interval with nine down for 248; and at stumps New Zealand had lost six for 162. Gover’s one wicket cost him 63 runs, and 53 were hit off Watts, of Surrey, for three wickets. On the other hand S. H. Betts, of Taranaki, took six for 59, including two with successive balls at the close of one over, the second being Watts, clean bowled. Scores: ALDERSHOT COMMAND. E. H. Moss (Oxford), lbw, b Betts 32 M. M. Walford (Oxford), c Tindill, b Betts 13 E. A. Watts (Surrey), b Betts 0 A. B. Sellers (Yorkshire), c Monk, b Betts 51 B. H. Valentine (Kent and England), b Thompson 91 W. S. Lithgow, not out 35 K. G. Harvey (Gloucestershire), I lbw, b Betts 0 D. C. Wilson (Cambridge), c Stace, b Thompson 2 R. T. Northcote-Green, b Thompson 12 A. L. Gover, Surrey and England), b Betts 5 K. B. Stanley, not out 3 Extras 4 Total for nine wickets 248 Bowling: S. H. Betts, six for 59; F. S. Thompson, three for 82. N.Z.E.F. (U.K.) C. P. Wareham, c Harvey, b Watts 55 E. W. Tindill, b Watts 70 H. E. Reaney (Hawke’s Bay), lbw, b Wilson I 4 W. B. Coupland, c Moss, b Wilson 6 P. E. Stace, b Watts 4 A. B. Gillespie, not out 1 P. G. Monk, b Govfer 5 S. H. Betts, not out 3 Extras 4 Total for six wickets 162 Bowling: Gover, one for 63; Watts, three for 53; Wilson, two for 41. Another extra-military activity of the N.Z.E.F. (U.K.) that has been interrupted by altered military requirements is the series of popular weekly

all-ranks dances organised in London by the New Zealand War Services Association. The dance the Friday after we moved camp away from our former base was to have been the last of the then current series, and special measures had been taken to ensure its outstanding success. For one thing, it was to have been held at the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, the very heart of Mayfair, wartime town residence of some of the richer aristocracy, and one of the select playgrounds of the wealth of England. There, perhaps for the first time in its history, soldiers in the ranks were to have danced in a famous West End ballroom, just as they do in New Zealand. For the moment. Hitler has got in the way;

but the War Services Association is not easily turned from its purpose of entertaining the boys, and if it be at all possible without needless exposure to danger, that dance will be held. Meanwhile the Association’s New Zealand Forces Club carries on, undisturbed by a bomb crater in the road outside, although it has fewer soldiers to cater for now that full strength is needed in the field and leave has been suspended. Before leaving camp, Brigadier Hargest and headquarters officers of the sth Infantry Brigade gave a garden party there to members of the War Services Association and others who have helped to entertain troops in London. About 150 people were present, including the High Commissioner and Mrs Jordan, and much interest war shown in the latest weapons and appliances of infantry war, which were on display. The spectacle of ladies in summer frocks riding round in Bren gun carriers to the wailipg accompanL ment of air raid sirens would have been incongruous thirteen months ago. At the garden party nobody seemed to think it in the slightest degree out of the ordinary.