Tom WHITTAKER : What the Dressing-room means to Football'
This evening's talk is to be given by the man who has played no small part in the great success achieved by the Arsenal-Tom Whittaker , their trainer ; and it is concerned with the dressing-room, and everything that the dressing-room implies.
For, just as the modern trainer, whether of footballers or boxers or greyhounds, must be conversant with the latest scientific methods to cure an injury, so the modern dressing-room must supply them.
Ultra-violet rays and electrical baths and all the rest of it. The sprained ankle, the pulled groin muscle, the leg enfeebled by an operation-all these respond to the modern trainer's gadgets, and a man may now be back in the team in days instead of weeks, and play the same season instead of being on the shelf until the following year.
But it must always be remembered that, thanks to that key-man of the team-the trainer-a professional footballer is so fit that he can recover from a collision on the football ground that would take most of the spectators to hospital for a month. The trainer runs out with his little bag, applies a cold water spray to the back of the player's neck, or massages the injured part, or pours whiskey into his boot to keep the injured ankle warm and prevent swelling, and in seconds the player limps back to the game. It is next day that the trouble comes-especially in the case of a player who has lost the resilience of youth ; and it is then that the magic of the dressing-room comes in.