WHY AUSTRALIA SHOULD PLAY SOCCER
---Talk with an English Captain---

Saturday May 30, 1925 - Pals Magazine

W.C Ceasar, who captained the English soccer team against the Victorians, is 24 years of age, and a fine specimen of young English manhood. He thinks that Australian boys should go in more for soccer than they do.

"I don't desire to say anything against your Australian game," he remarked, in the course of talk, "but it is too much like Rugby to take my fancy, and Rugby, as you know, is certainly on the rough side. British Association football, on the contrary, is purely scientific football. There is practically no roughness in it. It is a matter of skill in controlling the ball with the feet and using your brains to get the best results.

"I learned to play the Association game when I was a little chap going to an elementary school. I was only about twelve years of age when I played for the school. I played army football during the ear. Then I Played for Civil Service and Dulwich Hamlet, with which club I am still associated. My place is on the half-back line. Of course, I think the Association code the greatest of all football games."

"Is the English boy very keen on football?"

"I really think that the English boy takes a keener interest in football than even your Australian boy. I have seen boys at home clustering about a dressing-room, waiting to catch a glimpse of this player or that player at close quarters - just a glimpse, you know, so that they may be able to tell their pals impressions of their particular hero."

"Do English schoolboys go in much for the Association game?" was the next question.

"English boys are tremendously keen on soccer," said Mr Caesar. "It is played in the elementary schools and many other schools. International contests between schoolboys take place regularly under the control of the Schoolboys' International Association. These matches are played against Scotland, France and other nations. To be chosen to represent England on such an occasion is a great honor of which any schoolboy might be proud. Many counties in England also have their separate associations for schoolboys so you can gather that the boys have every opportunity of developing into champions. Two of the members of our team - Hannaford and Williams - were schoolboys internationals, and very fine players too."

"Just as we left England," remarked Mr Caesar, "there was a movement on foot to arrange schoolboy county matches between Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and other counties. But, year in and year out many competitions among schoolboys are played."

"What about the public schools? Do these play Rugby or soccer?"

"Some schools play Rugby, some British Association, and some both," replied Mr Caesar. "There is a Schools' Football Association for London, West London, West Ham, etc., and the teams, picked from various schools, play annually for the English School Shield. Each boy who plays twice for his district receives a cap, and I can tell you that the boy who wins a cap is the envy of all other boys."

"Young boys," said Mr Caesar, "nearly all play soccer in England. It is a far more suitable game for lads up to, say, 12 years of age than Rugby, and I venture to say it is a more suitable game for them than that played under Australian rules. When they grow older, of course, they can play any game, according to their choice."

"My advice to Australian schoolboys is to give the British Association game a trial. I am sure that, if they have not played it before, they will play it again. I think that it will gradually grow in popularity here, as it is really such a splendid game for boys. I know that boys are never agraid of a game because it is rough, but soccer can give a boy plenty of thrills without the roughness. It sharpens his wits while it builds up his body. As a rule, under the Rugby or Australian code, a boy needs to be fairly robust to play, but the game of soccer does not call for quite so much strength."

Mr Caesar is the only amateur member of the English team now touring Australia.

Mr S.A. Storey, chairman of the Australian Football Association, who was present, gave some interesting figures regarding the growth of soccer in Australia. "In Sydney," he stated, "there are 140 soccer school teams or 20 more than play Rugby, which is the dominant code in New South Wales. Altogether Sydney has 400 soccer clubs with 6,000 players. In Adelaide 44 clubs play the Australian game and 37 play soccer. In Queensland it is the only game that stands a chance of rivalling Rugby League, while in Western Australian it is making strides. One of the men who played for Adelaide against the English team was a west Australian boy who learnt his soccer at Claremont public school, near Perth."