NZ Soccer Players
pp. 55-56 · Read in the full issue
Beat Indians And All Fiji Residents Hold Post-Mortems
SUVA, September 21.
THE New Zealand Soccer team has left Fiji for Tahiti without losing a match (6 wins, including all 3 tests, and one draw), and a good deal of heart-searching appears to be going on in Indian circles.
An Indian journal which is not usually noted for the accuracy or fairness of its comments on more serious subjects has this time pro duced a reasonable summing-up of a situation which has rather sharply knocked Indian susceptibilities. It says: “The inability to combine, to put in good teamwork under a cap tain—perhaps an inherent trait in national character—that was the most glaring weakness . . . And it was not infrequently that the players hit something other than the ball. How else can one explain the numerous
Welcome dinner to the NZ team at the Grand Pacific Hotel. Mr. W. P. Smith, the manager of the NZ team is standing. Others seen in this photograph from right to left are: Mr. K. Gajadhar (partly seen), The Hon. B. M. Jannif, Fiji Financial Secretary, Mr. Davidson, Mr. A. Deoki , Mr. E M. Grant. Next to Mr . Smith is the Mayor, Councilor N. Macfarlane. -Cains Studios.
cases (among the New Zealanders) when medical aid was found neces sary?”
The same Indian paper alleges that the selectors made their selection ‘‘without even once seeing the players in action on the ground,” and adds that in future no “national” team should be permitted to play “without
good, adequate, sustained and sys tematic coaching, with the help of able coaches from overseas if neces sary.”
I>UT no amount of good coaching ** can turn a medley of conflicting temperaments into a team, and it has been the Indian temperament, rather than the players’ inability to beat the
New Zealanders, that has made non- Indians refuse to accept the Indian! soccer team as representative of Fiji.
Out of the general speaking of minds has come a belated Indian ad mission that there are many excellent Fijian (and even European) Soccer players in Fiji, And there are now* some Indian suggestions that Fijians; and Europeans might be drawn into the fold under the banner of Indian: Soccer, all in the name of inter-racial! co-operation. Observers here do not: think such a plan would succeed..