BADMINTON.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20906, 13 July 1933, Page 13

BADMINTON.

; ENTHUSIASM FOR THE | GAME. POPULAR IN CHRISTCIIURCH. For some reason as inexplicable as the sudden popularity of jig-saw puzzles and the advent of the marbles season at school, the game of badminton has swept through the country from end to end, and is being ardently practised by people of all ages ana sizes. "Battledore and Shuttlecock, as it was called, was once a fovourite sport for children. Adult dignity has been satisfied by the substitution of the name badminton and by the formulation of a code of rules which makes the game one of the fastest and most strenuous of all. It is generally regarded, fo.r instance, as much more strenuous than Rugby football. Two good players matched in a singles game find a set of badminton much more arduous than a set of tennis singles. . The game is played on an indoor court similar to a tennis court, with a net sft high. The dimensions of the singles court are 44ft x 17ft, and of the doubles court, 44ft by 20ft. The outdoor game is unsatisfactory because the feathered cork shuttle weighs only about 80 grains—one-sixth of an ounce —and the wind plays havoc with its flight. The racquets are like tennis racquets, but very slender. They weigh only four and a half to seven ounces, instead of the 13A ounces of a standard tennis racquet, but the lightest racquet very often becomes too heavy when a last effort is made to catch the shuttle in a rally before it strikes the ground and falls "dead." The feathers are not ordinary feathers; they are from a special breed of goose with light, stiff quills, that will make the shuttle fly true. Championship Meeting. Badminton is not a new game, nor is it as old as some people believe. It had an obscure origin in India, and it was brought to England in 1873. In Canada it is played more generally than tennis; in the United States it has long been popular; and in England and Australia, as in New Zealand, it has lately been making rapid progress. The Christchurch Badminton Club, which was established on June 1 by the efforts of half a dozen men, has now a mixed membership of about 80. After securing affiliation with the New Zealand Badminton Association, it proposes to form a Canterbury Association and to hold an official Canterbury championship tournament at the end of August or me beginning of September. Two courts have been laid out in a building off Hereford street, and the club is already planning additions to meet its increasing membership. The players are drawn mostly from the tennis clubs in and around the city, and include D. F. Glanville, R. Browning, J. G. A'Court, and N. G. Munns, and Misses M. Wake and M. Sherris. Some of them find that the game does not improve their tennis, but Mr Glanville, for one, though he admits that after badminton his tennis racquet feels as heavy as an axe, thinks that it assists his tennis play. It is, in any case, an excellent sport for keeping tennis players fit through the winter months and at the same time giving them keen enjoyment.