BLOW TO TENNIS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31520, 7 November 1967, Page 19

BLOW TO TENNIS

In a season with an important programme of major tournaments Canterbury tennis has suffered a severe blow. This is the announcement that the chairman of the association’s management committee (Mr M. C. Healey) will move to Wellington in January.

Although it will be two months before he leaves, Mr Healey will ask to relinquish his position at a meeting of the management committee next Monday evening, so that a new chairman will be well established by the time of the national championships in January. Mr Healey was also to have been manager of the Canterbury championships at the end of December and of the national tournament.

Mr Healey came to Christchurch from Waikato almost exactly 14 years ago because his first match in Christchurch was in the show tournament. For those 14 years he has been manager for Canterbury, Marlborough and West Coast of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. His new posiI tion is manager for New Zealand of the M.L.C. Fire and I General Insurance Company. | Over the 14 years Canterbury tennis has benefited remarkably from Mr Healey’s enthusiasm, energy and enterprise. When he arrived he (already had a good record as a player—junior champion!

of the West End club, Auckland, an Auckland representative, member of the Waikato Wilding Shield side, and a New Zealand Catholic singles and doubles champion. In Canterbury he won the Easter singles, the Canter-

bury men’s doubles, the first Labour week-end tournament, was a representative and Wilding Shield player many times, and a leading club player for Cashmere until a few seasons ago. He had also had administrative experience when he came to Christchurch—a club committeeman, secretary of the Auckland junior association and a member of the Waikato executive—but it has been here that his work as an administrator has made him a national figure in tennis. First elected to the Canterbury management committee in 1954, Mr Healey has been a member since and its chairman for five seasons with a break of one season In the middle. He was a Canterbury

selector and organiser of ranking matches for about 10 years, and a national selector for six years with the responsibility of choosing Davis Cup teams. As the efficient organiser and conductor of numerous tournaments, professional appearances, representative contests and social and other functions, Mr Healey has given countless hours to Canterbury tennis and under his guidance policy has been formed and efforts made which might never have eventuated. The province is fortunate that he hopes still to act as a delegate to the national association and in Wellington his talents may be of advantage to the New Zealand association.