Veteran Soccer Team Aims For Fine Season, Major 'H'

A team of ten veteran booters and a lone sophomore will probably take the field Tuesday against Tufts when Bruce Munro's soccer team opens what may well be the most significant soccer year at Harvard. This situation holds true not only because the team may compile a fine record--no opponent on the schedule can afford to feel secure against this year's outfit--but also because this is the year when a final decision will be reached on soccer's quest for major sport recognition.

The team's record alone will not determine whether major H's will be awarded to soccer players in the future. But it will make a difference, and may even be the decisive factor because of influence on the other considerations involved, i.e., attendance at practice, observation of training rules, and spectator interest.

No one at practice was making any predictions this week, but there is a quiet confidence that the team will do well, perhaps very well.

There is a very good reason for this. The only important losses the Crimson suffered by graduation last spring were Captain and halfback Carey McIntosh and inside right Marv Weiss, one of the team's high scorers. So with the exception of Don Beaver, last year's freshman captain, who is now at right fullback it will be an experienced eleven that Munro fields against the Jumbos. The other ten will already have had extensive varsity experience.

The defense has looked menacing all week with goalie Lindsay Fischer making frequent acrobatic stops and Beaver and Captain Hugh Sargent the left fullback, forming a solid defensive wall in front of him.

In the line, Munro will start Hank Holmes at outside left, Charlton macVagh at inside left and high-scoring Gray Hodnett at center forward. Dick Fisher, whose two goals won last year's Princeton game, will play at inside right and Bill Lingelbach at outside right.

The older of the Holmes brothers, Stacey will boot as center half, flanked by Dennis Little at left half and John Hadik at right half.

Besides this nucleus of veterans, Munro's first and second teams are backed up by players from last year's undefeated freshman team. Along with Beaver, the coach is counting on considerable service from Shad Tubman at center forward and Ken McIntosh at inside or outside right. Sophomores Karim Khan, who has not yet reported because of an accident this summer, and senior Pete Churchill are counted on for help at outside and inside left, respectively.

Yesterday's cancellation of the Amherst game will give the team more time to tune up for the new opener against a less dangerous Tufts team. The Little Three colleges are always rough: Wesleyan shut out the varsity, 2 to 0, in last year's opener.

Major status to the contrary, this year's eleven looks to better its 8-3 record of last season. No mean achievement this, but with a chance for the Ivy League Championship and the publicity which the squad long has felt it justly deserves, a showing of 12.0--twelve games are listed on the team's pre-season schedule--would look very impressive.

Among its strongest opponents will be Dartmouth, last year's champions of the New England League. Once past this mid-season hurdle formidable obstacles still loom in Pennsylvania and Yale. Against these opponents stands a team with depth and a team with an objective. How well it finally does depends now less on its composition or opposition than on its own determination