NEW ZEALANDERS AT THE CUP TIE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3979, 9 July 1913, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS AT THE CUP TIE.

HARD KNOCKS AND PROFES-

SIONALISM

A contributor to the London “Morning Post,” writing of his visit to the great Cup Tie football match between Aston Villa and Sunderland, says;— “The majority of the visitors wont up to the Palace at an early hour in order to make sure of a decent point of view in the unreserved portions of the ground. I myself went up by a very slow train and found myself in the company of two nice young New Zealanders, farmers hy vocation, who were rejoicing in their well-earned holiday in the Motherland, which they did not speak of as ‘Home,’ though loud in praise of its homely charms. They were amazed at the excitement about professional football, and rather aroused at the ‘brittleness’ of the professionals; being themselves practitioners of a more strenuous form of football, which can only be played by persons of judiciously-hardened physique., They wonderc-d how much time would be lost in the cup-tie owing to breakages. (In point of fact, about half-an-liour was wasted in this way.) They said that about forty New Zealand players were now in the service of Northern Union clubs; all of whom could easily be spared by the country where they wore • taught what they knew or think they know. It appears that the Northern Union game, tlTough it has become very popular in Australia, cannot make headway in New Zealand; partly because the amateur authorities have a firm hold on all the good grounds. And, finaly, let it be added that they felt father sore—like all their compatriots—that the South Africans had been invited out of their turn to tour through the Mother Country of Rugby football;