Silvester Retires

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30348, 25 January 1964, Page 9

Silvester Retires

ONE of Canterbury surfring’s finest team men, G. Silvester. has surprisingly anounced has retirement from active competition at the relatively early age of 27. A stalwart of toe South Brighton Surf Life-Saving Club, he intended to continue competing for many seasons but has been forced to withdraw on medical advice. This is a considerable blow to the South Brighton Club, as he has been one of its key members for many years. But Silvester has no intention of leaving the movement He has already taken over the training of the club’s senior six-man team, of which he started the season as a member, and hopes to take on judging in the near future.

“I am certainly not pulling out of the movement. It means too much to me for that,” Silvester emphasised. In recent years Silvester has had an impressive record in competition, both at a provincial and national level. He has represented Canterbury on no less than three occasions (1960, 1961 and 1963), including the Royal carnival at Mount Maunganui last season.

As a team man he had few equals. He was an excellent drill man, an expert resuscitator at both the expired air and Holger Neilson methods and a strong swimmer who could always be relied on to give a good performance. As a junior in 1954 he reached the finals of the New Zealand junior belt championship and in 1956 was a member of the South Brighton six-man rescue and resuscitation team which

won the New Zealand title end Nelson Shield—the blue riband event of surfing. He was also a member of the team when it won the title in 1960 and 1961—a fine record by any standards.

In 1960 he was a member of the South Brighton team which won the team's surf race. Two years later when the club repeated this performance, he was once again a member of the victorious team.

On the administrative side, Silvester has also done more than his share. He has been on his club's committee almost constantly since 1953, after joining the club only three years previously. He has been the club's delegate to the Canterbury Surf Life-Saving Association and for a time was its secretary. In 1961 he became vice-cap-tain and the following year captain of the club, a position he still holds.

It was not a season to cheer Canterbury supporters But it was not one to grieve over unduly.