While appearing to be a report on the state of football in Sydney, this longish article really is a passionate defence of Rugby Union and an attack on Rugby League. The writer is deeply concerned about newly arrived professionalism and its 'distortion' of the fortunes of the different codes. He sees participation as being a much better indicator than attendance when it comes to judging the health of a game and the culture it nourishes. Soccer comes off well in the report because it too has retained its amateur status. The author seems to be of the opinion that had soccer gone the 'professional' route then it might have been the top dog in Sydney. Australian rules, "the Australian variant of the Rugby game" is passed over with a brief mention but is acknowledged as making headway towards becoming a "national sport".
THE FOOTBALL SEASON.
With the month of May upon us, the fancy of our young men lightly turns to thoughts of football. The fancy of a good many older, men, too, for that matter. For it is one of the glories of the great winter game that it retains the interest and the affection of all who have over been actively in touch, with its thrill of contest. Of football, as of most games, it is true that as the years go by its patrons whose memories are long find themselves less and less companionable spectators of it. They are more and more for the players that have been. Their present ringside mood is apt to be coloured by their remembrance of the past. There were football giants in the earth in their day, and they loom ever larger through their halos. But, though that be so, the game has vitality enough to hold them loyal to itself, however it may be as to its exponents. As for the younger generation of football patrons, they increase and multiply with every winter, and their enthusiasm grows with them.
Football interest nowadays offers a far more divided appeal than was once the case. With four codes in operation, indeed, it is probable that the game has a more varied allegiance in this State than anywhere. The inevitable result of divided patronage, however, is to diminish the following avail- able to each, and some forms of the game suffer in consequence. They suffer, that is, In respect of the numerical strength of that passive support which takes shape in Saturday attendances. But a game is still justifying itself, even though it be played to empty benches, if it commands a vigorous following of actual participants. The great weakness of modern sport, indeed, Is In its tendency to throw the bulk of its patronage into inaction. Thus it is a matter of spectacle rather than of exercise, while the sportsmanship of healthy contest becomes a pale reflection of itself in the crowd of onlookers, who, shout they never so wildly, are none the less out of the game.
So, as to "Soccer," though it attracts no great crowds here, and is still far from the dignity of international fixtures, it is not to be forgotten that it is played enthusiastically by those who believe it to be the only football. It comes to us, moreover, with a great history thick upon it, and with unquestioned reputation as the most popular football code in existence.
So, too, the Australian variant of the Rugby game deserves its place, in that it also has many players, and, further, is by way of being an attempt towards a national sport.
The Rugby League game, which in recent years has revolutionised our football outlook, is in no need of help towards popularity. Examination of the phenomenon of its so sudden appearance, and its so complete triumph, however, suggests that other things than the worth of the game itself came vitally into the matter. For one thing, it offered the attractions of professionalism to a number of players who desired professionalism. It secured to them not only immediate cash payment tor their skill, but also the pleasant prospect of trips to England, where the, little coterie of league clubs in Lancashire and Yorkshire would be glad to welcome them for the sake of their bearing upon their own "gates," and their own professional prosperity. In that way were lifted bodily from the old Rugby game its foremost exponents, upon whom it depended for its international contests and its record crowds. The League game has Its virtues, no doubt, but its great popularity just now is due less to them than to the calibre and the reputation of the men engaged in it, and the careful organisation which has secured to it the attraction of big matches. If a similar movement had been initiated in favour of the "Soccer" code, for example, and all these leading and popular players had gone over to professional "Soccer," and International "Soccer" games had been set up, then undoubtedly "Soccer" would have triumphed just as the League game has triumphed, and "Soccer" would now be drawing the great football public.
Perhaps the time had come for professional football here, as it came in England. And though there need be no complaint against professionalism as such, it is well to remember that the history, past and present, of professional football is not reassuring to those who love sport as sport. For that reason it is to be hoped that the old Rugby game will always have its public. In England, though it does not command the mammoth crowds available to professional "Soccer," it has a great following. There, of course, and despite the fictitious importance attached on this side to the recent tour of the League players, the Northern Union game is non-existent outside its own corner. Rugby, on the contrary, is played by thousands of clubs in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and its spectators number hundreds of thousands. The county competitions, the Public school competitions, the Oxford and Cambridge contests, and the great international games between the four countries, establish Rugby safely enough, the season just ended, in fact, having revealed it as enjoying a splendid revival. For various reasons it has its own brand of public, and one of those reasons is that the Rugby game stands for amateurism as against professionalism.
That will become its function here. It will suffer for some time under the disintegration of the League movement, and it will suffer most because it has to produce afresh the brilliant representative side it has lost. But the Rugby game being what it is, there can be no doubt of its place among us. It will evolve its players and its public. Its ultimate object - being the game, and not the gate, it will develop well enough on the careful lines now imperative, upon its governing authority.
That section of the public which values the sport for which Rugby is to stand will have been especially glad ' to hear of the invitation from the California Union. That should give the amateur code a very valuable fillip of interest. It should make its season attractive to the public, and inspiring to the players. The League game will once again be strong in interest, and no doubt the other codes will develop their customary following. It is satisfactory to know that the schools are already active in preparation for the coming season. A very valuable work is in progress in that connection among the older boys, and a great deal of whole-hearted football enthusiasm is at its service. The football field could hardly be bettered as a training ground for healthful hardiness of mettle. The game is a strenuous one, and it demands a high order of physical fitness. The boy who qualifies for his school side gives earnest, therefore, of condition and stamina, and thousands of boys will presently be engaged in profitable effort after those good qualities.
The coming football season promises well, thus, in all respects. It certainly has the advantage here of wonderful weather surroundings. Those who know the days of misty cold, in which football has to thrive as best it may in England, when the field is soft with rain or hard under frost, and the spectators shiver In the bleakness of the winter air, will best appreciate the clear and, sunny crispness of our football days. But the game's the thing, here as there, and under such conditions as ours there is no wonder that we make it a big thing.
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