BADMINTON TEAM TO PLAY OTAGO

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29246, 2 July 1960, Page 5

BADMINTON TEAM TO PLAY OTAGO

/CANTERBURY'S Division 1 badminton team will begin its 1960 representative season with the match against Otago at Dunedin today. The competition among Canterbury, Otago and ' Southland for the Neill Cup has been very close for the last few years.

In the last three seasons Canterbury has beaten Otago but always by the narrowest of margins. In 1957 in Christchurch each team won eight matches, and Canterbury won on the count-back by 20 sets to 18. In 1958 Canterbury won by nine matches to seven, the first time for many years that Canterbury had won a match played in Dunedin. Last season, at Christchurch, Canterbury again won by nine matches to seven.

Indications are that Canterbury’s team this year is slightly weaker, and Otago’s slightly stronger, than in the last few seasons. As usual, Otago should be considerably stronger in the

men's events, but Canterbury may find its superiority in the women’s matches not as pronounced as usual. Two members of the 1960 Thomas Cup team to play Australia, R. Reid and G. Hinton, will head the Otago side. Hinton is a gain to Otago from Central Otago. The other Otago men players will be D. Holden, the junior Southland player, and the consistent C. Garry. Garry had a win over Hinton in an inter-club match last week. In the Canterbury men’s team C. W. Pritchard has been transferred to Wellington and R. G. Pattinson has retired. Their replacements, D. A. Henderson and r: C. Dunn, are young players of promise. R. K. Macefleld and D. B. Reid will fill the top two positions in the Canterbury side. Mrs G. Middleburg should again be untroubled to beat Mrs D. Hay (Otago) in the top women’s singles, but Canterbury may feel keenly the loss of Misses B. Webster and S. Miller, second an<? fourth in last year’s team. The return of Miss S. Field should strengthen Canterbury. The other Canterbury women, Mrs A. Ryan and Miss R. White, will have to struggle to win their matches.