Reflections On 1958 Match In Germany

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29269, 29 July 1960, Page 19

Reflections On 1958 Match In Germany

“What I should have done and what I did not do,” is one of Mr Robert M. Kingsbury’s main recollections of the 1958 world championships held at Hohenheim Agricultural College, about eignt miles out of Stuttgart in Western Germany. Mr Kingsbury, of Wakanui in Mid-Canterbury, was the New Zealand champion that year and he has so far been the most successful New Zealand competitor at a world match. He finished seventh out of 30 competitors from 18 countries being less than 12 points behind the world champion of that year, T. L.- Goodwin of Great Britain. There was a rather picturesque setting for the world match that year. The ploughing area was about the only fiat land around Stuttgart and was surrounded by rolling forested country. The ground itself was a little uneven —it had probably been used for experimental plots—with a few rocks or uneven stones and the soil was inclined to bg harsh. On the first day competitors had two and a half hours in which to plough a' half acre plot of stubble. Because he had to use semi-digger boards he was not able to do the true full-digger ploughing, but Mr Kingsbury remembers that he gained points for his feering and finish and he was second among all competitors tor in and outs that day. His placing that day was 11th with 70.29 points. In this section of the contest all competitors were very evenly matched and there was only 181 points between the first competitor, whose score was 74.75, apd the last. That day W. L. McMillan, of Northern Ireland, who won the world championships last year, was ploughing alongside the New Zealander and Bob Kingsbury says that it tended to show his ploughing up. Tension was pretty high all that week at Hohenheim and it reached a peak on the second day when competitors had three hours to plough a plot in two-year grass. Mr Kingsbury had a little bother that day. He says: “I did not come in square at the finish,'which was my own fault in not measuring up sooner, and I made a miscalculation in my measurements so that for my finishing run I had a good 14 inches of grass left when normally you want about 9 or 10, depending on the width that you are ploughing. “I managed to turn it all over but I had a ledge and it definitely did not balance up with the rest of the ploughing ... I did not think the ploughing was good but the judges apparently thought it merited a good award.”

Mr Kingsbury was placed sixth in this section with 74.25 points compared wit hthe winner** 81.67, and he was first for ins and outs. It> this section of the contest Mr Kingsbury considers that there was a much wider variation in the ability of competitors and only the first 10 would have come up to New Zealand championship standard. Helicopters making an “awful din*' just above the neads of the ploughmen did not help matters on the second day.

Mr Kingsbury went to Germany on his own and almost every evening of the week he was at Hohenheim there was an official function that he felt obliged to attend. The result was that he got on average only about six hours of sleep a night and at the end of the contest he wanted only to catch up lost time and went to feed for about 34 hours waking only to take meals.

An air of gaiety surrounded the match. It coincided with an annual carnival which began with a procession in national costume. People in national costume mingled with spectator* at the match. On the first day the attendance was about 35,000 and on the second day 50.000 to 60,000.