Football at the crossroads
Football is a house divided against itself, and unless all concerned decide to work together all sorts of different versions of football will be in vogue, and there will be nothing we can proudly point to as "our very own game."
Football is causing considerable anxiety lately. There is a demand for sweeping reform in the control and the rules of the game, and one finds the League told exactly how it should run its business. Delegates are—so it is said—simply ruining football because they legislate solely for their own club interest. Their Coulter law is a fiasco; the district scheme a farce; the method of control and supervision of umpires impossible; the clearance laws rank injustice, and so on, but there are more serious things to discuss.
I refer to the various suggested amendments and alterations to the rules. The Association early began the ball rolling with its three rules—the reversion to the old throw-in from the boundary—the penalty free given against the player who bumps an opponent after he has kicked, and the "throw" stunt. The Association, very sure of its successful revolution of the game, tells the League, "You will have to make the same changes. Fall in behind us or the popularity of League football will disappear." But the League tries to think of a few improvements of its own.
We hear of a new hold-the-ball rule whereby the man in possession is allowed two seconds to rid himself of the ball after a tackle and of other slight alterations.
Old rules suggested
There are suggestions to go back to the old flick pass—a cross between the throw and the present-day definite punch. Some people want a circle 25 yards in diameter drawn round the ring in the centre to prevent the wing men, half-backs, and half forwards crowding into the centre as the ball is bounced. A correspondent's idea was to draw two parallel lines 25 yards away, and at each side of the centre, not have a bounce at all after a goal, but to allow the game to begin again by a kick off from one of these lines, according to which side kicked the goal.
Somebody would not allow any player, when in possession, to be tackled from behind at all, but the very latest is to play a game with the Association rules, minus two or three men.
The game which has satisfied the public and players for more than 70 years and which has been the greatest sporting attraction in the world, on a population ratio, is evidently not good enough! If this keeps on we had better scrap the Australian game, and settle down to play Rugby—the game of our ancestors.
I almost feel it is a duty to give my views on the Association rules which have brought to pass the present state of affairs. The one giving a penalty and distance to a player bumped after a kick helps to eliminate the "basher" is good, but does not materially affect the game.
The reversion to the old "throw-in" from the boundary is a controversial subject. The claim against the League's law is that it allows a man to let the ball roll out without making any attempt to stop it. I would reply that for every time a player does this now, under the old rule the ball would be kicked or surreptitiously worked out of bounds a dozen times to gain breathing time or to hold the opposing side off in a tight finish. Moreover, the "throw-in" made play congested around, the boundary line, and it kept many "bashers" in the game, and in my opinion, it was not for the good of football.
The "throw pass," however, definitely alters the characteristics of the game. The Association claims that the throw eliminates crushes, makes a faster, more open game, and makes umpiring easy, and easy to follow for the spectators. I entirely agree with those arguments. The Association has shown us a simple, open, spectacular, straight-ahead game without constant and contentious interruption by the umpire's whistle.
Throw pass alters game
Were it played by the higher grade footballers of the League, we would see in a year or two something entirely new in Australian football. The courageous dashes into the packs; those manly charges straight through which brings us to our feet would not be there; packed football would be eliminated; clever blind turns, the miraculous side steps and feints out of crushes, which demand split-second thinking and perfect control of mind over body, would not be necessary.
Our excitement as a back-man obtains the ball, or is cornered, and our tense moments of worry as we wonder whether he can possibly get a kick to clear, would never happen. The back man would simply throw the ball away.
The forward, hemmed in as he often is to-day, and who gives us heart failure as he tries to kick a deciding point, would also not be seen. He would throw a point. How the scoring would mount? We would see two or three players swarming up the field, throwing to each other and out of trouble, defenders finding it impossible to stop the team with a run on, and goals galore.
In our present game we argue and curse an umpire because he blows a whistle too frequently. Under the new ones we would be compelled, without a murmur, to spend the greater part of the afternoon in admiring the umpires' sprinting powers as they continually dashed to the centre to bounce the ball.
Which would you have? An afternoon of tense thrilling and argumentative struggle, or one spent in peaceful, soothing enjoyment of an open fastidious game in which no player is likely to bump the other? Personally I prefer the game as it is with one or two minor private alterations of my own. But what I prefer, or you would like, does not matter. Perhaps all this squabbling is a blessing in disguise, and we might eventually have a representative footballers' convention.
Footnotes
Title: Football at the crossroads present game is best Author: Ivor Warne-Smith Publisher: The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria, 1848-1957) Date: Friday, 12 August 1938, p.17 Web: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12465016
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