RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31504, 19 October 1967, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

VIRTUOSO

Country doctors are required to display considerable virtuosity in the course of their duties, and the report which follows bears testimony to their adaptability. For reasons which will be apparent after it has been read, the report can not disclose where this incident took place, or who were the principal parties involved. But it began in the doctor’s consulting room where he had a footballer patient The doctor expressed the opinion that the majority of Rugby players were not fully fit The footballer took a completely contrary view, and for a while, at least the delicate mechanism of the man was put aside in favour of a spirited debate on the doctor’s observation. The doctor claimed that he himself was fitter than thia so-called trained

footballer. The footballer snorted vigorously and said he was far fitter than the doctor. Both being typical New Zealanders, there was nothing for it but an immediate decision. It was nine o’clock on a frosty, starlit evening when they set out to run the quarter-mile between the chemist's shop and the post office. They were not suitably arrayed for such a contest, the doctor wearing a tailored suit and patent leather shoes, the footballer—a stock agent who had come straight from work—in rather unhygienic dungarees and hob-nailed boots. The doctor, a sporting character, said his opponent’s hob-nailed boots might be a drawback. The footballer said some sort of handicap was necessary, and as he was a regular footballer and the doctor was not. the outcome of

the race was a foregone conclusion. It was a bizarre scene. A country town on a midwinter evening is not bulging with humanity, and there was nothing to hear but stertuous breathing and, as they occasionally appeared beneath a street lamp, these two straining figures. They were locked together at the start but after 100 yards the doctor drew ahead. At half-way, he was still in front. The thunder of hob-nailed boots grew louder in the doctor’s ears, and he spurted. He went past the post office a clear winner. Perhaps there was no real need to be so coy about' revealing the place and the people. Because the All Blacks have left for their tour now, and our defeated footballer is among them.

Did the selectors pick the wrong man?