Meads Denies Report, Not Retiring

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32005, 4 June 1969, Page 15

Meads Denies Report, Not Retiring

(N.Z. Press Association) NEW PLYMOUTH. “I will still be trying to make the team for South Africa and am very keen to get there,” the All Black, C. E. Meads, said yesterday.

Commenting on a report that he might not be available for South Africa, Meads explained how a misunderstanding might have arisen. “I was talking to some of the Welshmen after the game on Saturday and I did say it would be harder to keep on playing. I naturally have to train hard to keep fit. “Also, with taking over a new farm, I will be pretty well tied up and will probably have to put a manager on the property, but I will be trying all out to make the team.” Meads said that a reporter overheard the comment and asked if he could quote him.

“I said he could if he wanted to but I didn’t feel that it was important enough to quote. I think his report probably gave the wrong impression—it went a bit further than what I feel I said,”

NO MORE FIGHTING Cassius Clay says his boxing days are over and he plans to make speeches and

sell hamburgers, Associated Press reported. “I’ll never return to fighting,” he said at the Federal court where he and his lawyer appeared for a hearing to determine if Clay’s conviction for refusing to be inducted into the armed services was brought about in any way by Government wiretapping. Clay was sentenced to five years in gaol and fined SUSIO,OOO by the District Court in Houston for failing to answer his draft in 1967. He has been free on bail pending appeals. Clay’s lawyer, Mr Charles Morgan, jun,, said the Government had tapped the boxer’s telephone conversations with President Nasser of Egypt and the late Black Nationalist leader, Malcolm X. The hearing was adjourned.—N.Z.P.A., Houston. CANADA’S BID Canada yesterday presented the International Olympic Committee with a bid to host the whole of the 1976 Olympic Games, with Montreal a candidate for the summer events and Vancouver for the winter sports. Mr Jean Drapeau, the Mayor of Montreal, said that he was given a “very pleasant” reception by the 1.0. C. president, Mr Avery Brundage. .

The candidacy of Garibaldi, a winter sports resort above Vancouver, was presented by the town’s organising committee. Montreal was a candidate for the 1972 games which went to Munich. A final decision on the 1976 cities will be taken by the 1.0. C. in Amsterdam in 1971. —Reuter, Lausanne. BEHIND WIRES A proposal to fence off all Sydney Rugby league grounds with barbed wire to protect referees and linesmen from attack by spectators will be put to a special meeting of the New South Wales Rugby League. The. proposal follows an attack by a spectator on a linesman during an inter-club first grade match on Saturday. The linesman, Mr Gordon Hedger, was knocked to the ground and suffered scalp wounds and bruises.

A 21-year-old Sydney clerk appeared in Court on Monday charged with the assault on Mr Hedger and was remanded until June 13.

The secretary of the New South Wales Referees’ Association (Mr Eric Cox) said he would put the barbed wire fence proposal, “If league crowds want to behave like animals they should be treated as such,” he added.— N.Z.P.A., Sydney. BIGGER PRIZE

A golf philanthropist, Mr R. Owens, the managing-director of Stars Travel, promoter of the New "ealand professional golf championship, said that if Auckland was able to get the $50,000 it needed for the City of Auckland Open in 1971, he would further increase his tournament prize.