OBITUARY

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31968, 21 April 1969, Page 14

OBITUARY

Mr A. V, E. M. Keast

A man who triumphed over a physical disability to become an outstanding sportsman and to develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of sport which gained him a national reputation, died in Christchurch yesterday. He was A. (Albie) V. E. M. Keast, known to most Southlanders as “Onlooker.” the “Southland Times” sporting diarist and Rugby commentator. He was 73. He had been in ill health for some time.

After working for some time as a clerical employee of the “Otago Daily Times," Mr Keast joined the journalistic staff of the “Southland Times" in 1926. He had an extraordinary memory which enabled him to keep track of players and games, even to the extent of correcting some official records. He was a Southland and Otago representative cricketer and selector. In 1925 be was a member of the first Otago team to win the Plunket Shield. He was a Southland representative and a champion bowler, a member of the Otago Cricket Association and president of the Southland association, president of the Southland and New Zealand Billiards Associations, and a member of the Southland Bowling Centre.

He managed a New Zealand bowls team to Adelaide in 1951, the year before he gave up playing. Before then he had also been a judge for 10 Southland racing and trotting clubs and for 11 years was a sports broadcaster.