FORMER FOOTBALLER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 209, 4 August 1937, Page 9

FORMER FOOTBALLER.

DEATH IN AFRICA

WREATH FOR GRAVE,

Memories of the death of her mother on one of the playing fields of Scuth Africa have been revived for Mrs Andrew Ross, of Queen Street, Palmerston North by the visit of the Springboks to Palmerston North and, because of the sympathy South African footballers showed on that occasion thirtythree years ago, and in tending his grave she has always held_ for them the warmest affection and friendship. Her brother was Mr A. N. 0. McGonayls. a former footballer, and she has made arrangements to have a wreath placed on his grave when the Springboks return to South Africa. Through the courtesy of Mr <l. H. White, secretary of the Mnnwatu Rugby Union, Mrs Ross was able to meet a number of the visitors in Palmerston North. The late Mr McGonagle, who was born in New Plymouth, remained in South Africa after the Boer War and linked up with the old Central South African Railway team, for which ho played as five-eighth but, at the age of 27, died at Doornfontein on August 14, 1904, as the outcome of concussion and other injuries suffered when tackling a player in a Rugby match. He was employed in the chief Accountant’s branch of the at Johannesburg. Mrs Ross has. always been warrnlj appreciative of the action of the tootball clubs in that district in erecting a memorial headstone over her brother’s grave, and a photograph of the memorial, shown to a standard” representative, conveys an excellent impression of the high esteem in which Mr McGonagle was field.