Suva's Stage is Almost Set

For South Pacific Games

From our Suva Correspondent

The 100 per cent, fit-looking athlete featured on the badge of the first South Pacific Games is rapidly nearing the starting tape at Suva's Buckhurst Park.

THE track is laid, the grand-stands, pavilions and changing rooms are almost completed, and the stage is set for the grand opening of the first combined athletic games ever held by the South Pacific territories.

All that is wanted now is the arrival of the opening day, August 29, the crowds and the fine weather.

The fine weather is probably the most doubtful ingredient, bearing in mind Suva’s record. North-west Viti Levu pointed to that with scorn when Fiji was asked to be host to the Games and Suva was chosen in preference to Lautoka, which has more sunshine (but less of everything else) for such an event as the Games.

With the arrival at Suva some weeks ago of Mr. Francis Joseph Coyne, the Director of Organisation, from the United Kingdom, the real job of organising the Games got under way.

Fourteen territories will be taking part, but because of a hurricane which, as hurricanes do, put their economy back more than somewhat, Guam and Trust Territories had reluctantly to withdraw.

The competing territories now will be: American Samoa, British Solomon Island Protectorate, New Hebrides, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Tonga, Nauru, New Caledonia and depen dencies, Niue, Papua-New Guinea, Wallis and Futuna Islands and Western Samoa.

Sports Events

There has been a little pow-wow behind the scenes regarding the sports in which competition will take pla^ 6.

Some argued the difficulty of fix ing a programme some time before hand of official sports which will take the field for sure, even though entries may be poor.

It was eventually decided that the following sports will take place, however few entries there are.

Athletics, men and women; indoor basketball, men and women; boxing; association football; lawn tennis, Rugby football; swimming, men and

women; table tennis, men and women; volleyball.

Any other sports will be subject to cancellation if entries are low.

These are described as unofficial sports, and any not supported by at least four entries will be deleted.

News from the other territories is that teams are training hard and there is likely to be some magnificent displays in the athletics, swimming, boxing and soccer events.

Fiji is a little worried about its soccer entry, a problem which is in the melting pot at the moment.

Soccer Split

Soccer in the Colony has been almost entirely an Indian sport and for 28 years a well organised Colony wide Football Association has functioned as a parent body, jealously guarding its status and the good name of the game.

Now comes a split due to a wrangle last year over the action of the South India Association in invit ing a New Zealand club to visit Fiji.

The Fiji Football Association excommunicated the South Indian officials responsible for the invita tion, after they had refused to bow the neck to the FFA. The tour did not take place but there has been a backwash of ill feeling, and a SC A S splinter group called the Fiji Soccer Federation has now been formed and of course any Clubs joining the federation are automatic ally expelled by the FFA which is the only soccer body recognised by the Fiji Amateur Sports Association, the body which decides who is and who is not acceptable as a com petitor in the Games.

The rebels have taken some of Fiji’s leading players, so that if the breach is not healed before the Games open, Fiji’s soccer entry may not be of the strongest.

Money is one of the most impor tant ingredients for the success of the Games. A “Mammoth Lottery is well on the way to raising £4,000 towards the £5,000 which the South Pacific Games fund raising committee was asked, at the outset, to find.

NEW POSTS. Lieut.-Colonel George Mate, MC, MM (above) and Lieut.

Kiniviliame Cava, MBE (below) have recently been appointed to new posts in the Fiji Military Forces. Lieut.- Colonel Mate has succeeded Lieut.- Colonel H. M. Boulton, OBE, MC, ED, as commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Fiji Infantry Regiment. He was commissioned in April, 1944, and has served with distinction in the Solomons and Malaya. Lieut. Cava, formerly bandmaster of the Fiji Military Forces, was recently appointed Director of Music to the Forces, and promoted from the rank of Warrant Officer. He has served in the Solomons and Malaya. Photos: Rob Wright

But the committee hopes to do tter than that. It has already lected £2,000 with bazaars, dances, Icerts and what-have-you, so that ans a sure £6,000, and the com ttee has raised its sights on a ),000 target. fhat figure is not the whole bill Fiji. Altogether, the Games will t Fiji about £30,000. fhe Government has made grants £21,000, most of which has been ired into Buckhurst Park to make the finest sports centre in the ith Pacific.

Worth £5,000

Vhen the athletes race over the :k they will be running on £5,000th of work and materials, and the id accommodation has been ;nded to take another 800 or more :tators.

Jnder the stands are new showers changing rooms, and quite an Hint of cash has gone under- Lind —into the drainage, wo new floodlit basketball courts e been constructed, and other is spent on improvements here there to bring Suva’s facilities to a standard which other ntries will find hard to beat in re years. he village, temporary home of competitors, will be spread md three places at Suva, here is accommodation for 250 at Teachers’ Training College, nen will be quartered at the mmar School hostel and the nee will find themselves at the mmar School at Veiuto where srooms will be made into nitories. he only drawback to these other admirable arrangements is that e will have to be a speedy nation on September 9, because pupils will want the places the iwing day.

Flag Problem

nother problem exercising the Is of the officials is the problem lags and victory anthems. When ictory ceremony is staged, the ling territory’s flag will be run :he flag staff and the band will •ly a few bars of music. s many of the territories have same flag—Union Jack or Tri ur—and the same national em, something else to distinguish victors is needed for each terri he organisers, therefore, are open uggestions for flags and identify tunes.