WEST COAST CYCLING IS IN THE MELTING POT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30919, 27 November 1965, Page 11

WEST COAST CYCLING IS IN THE MELTING POT

YVEST COAST cycling, both cash and amateur, is in the melting-pot at the present time and only by combining their members and pooling their administrators can the two clubs expect to forge ahead. Both clubs are small, with about 25-30 members each, and at the present time are competing for members among the same riders. The Greymouth Cash Cycling Club was founded in 1900 and has had a notable history, but now seems

to be waning. It has 15 senior members and 12 juniors, and some good riders in T. Hartill, G. Peters, R. Stokes, and N. Clark. It races on Victoria Park when the weather is suitable and on the road the rest of the time; and in the last two years it has had to do a good deal of road cycling. The Greymouth Amateur Cycling Club was formed only 15 months ago by Mr A. F. Messenger, a former Wellington representative. He was a cash cyclist who was reinstated seven years ago.

Already the club has grown to 30 members and holds two meetings a week; Tuesday evening on Victoria Park and on Saturday afternoon at Anzac Park. As the club began with only three novices, it has made quite a spectacular advance. Mr Messenger’s services to the sport have been recognised quickly by the Canterbury Association, to which Greymouth belongs, as he has been appointed manager of the Canterbury team to the national road cycling championships to be held in Dunedin on December 3-4. Some members of the

cash club have joined the amateur club but there are now more cyclists in Greymouth than before the creation of the amateur club and its formation can hardly be said to have harmed the sport. There have been a number of frictions between the two clubs. Mr Messenger summed up his attitude as “a boy is wasting his time riding cash when there are so many opportunities for amateurs,” and, although his position is understandable, it has not endeared him to the cash cycling enthusiasts.

In other centres, the two sports have been joined into one organisation, but this will not be so easy to accomplish on the West Coast

Mr L. M. Nixon, a committee member of the cash club, considered the chief difficulty to be the status of the two organisations. The cash club is a separate entity in Greymouth but the amateur club is affiliated with Canterbury. Mr Messenger’s thoughts lie more towards forming a separate coast amateur club. “We cannot afford to be a separate centre yet, but if Westport and ourselves keep progressing we could form our own centre, - ' he said. “Canterbury would be happy with this as we are isolated and pose an administrative problem.

“We would have to build up a body of experienced administrators first.”

Although there are problems attending any projected combination, not the least being a mutual distrust, it is the question of finding suitable administrators which will probably force the clubs to combine eventually. Both sports require considerable organisation and, in an area with more than 100 inches of rain in a year, plans will always have to be changed. If cycling is to boom on the West Coast then both sports will have to be highly organised and, in the foreseeable future, the only way this can be done is to pool the administrators available.

This is the first of four articles by a sports reporter of “The Press” who visited the West Coast recently to survey the sporting position of the district