New Zealand Army Footballers.

News of the success of New Zealand's Army footballers has been trickling through week by week and it is obvious, from the names of the players, that a large number of our best players have donned the khaki and are no longer available for play in New Zealand. Just as the boys of the Echelon in Egypt have the tradition of the original Anzacs to urge them on to greater efforts, so have our soldier footballers a great tradition set them. The Army team of 1919 included some of the greatest players ever to wear the All Black jersey, and had the men from Mesopotamia been included, New Zealand might have fielded its “best ever.” But the lads of 1940 have a bigger handicap to overcome, on the football field, than was the lot of the 1919 brigade. Our Rugby mana stood on a pedestal in the years prior to 1919, but in recent years we have had our Rugby pride trampled into the dust by England, Wales, and South Africa. The time has arrived for the new generation to win its spurs on the field of battle and, also, to regain our Rugby prestige. The Army team of 1940 bids well to place New Zealand where she rightly belongs … at the top of the ladder.