A BUSY SEASON FOR BADMINTON

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32589, 24 April 1971, Page 46

A BUSY SEASON FOR BADMINTON

The match between Canterbury and the touring Australian team, and the New Zealand open and junior championships, all of which will be played in the Skellerup Hall, Christchurch, will be the highlights of a full badminton programme this season.

The Australian team will play Canterbury on July 10.

With P. V. Boatwood the only member of last season's Division I team playing A grade inter-club badminton this year G. Ellis, L. A. Robinson, and H. W. Little are not playing in the grade, and G. A. Miller, the Canterbury champion for the last two years, has a serious knee injury it is difficult to see Canterbury providing the

Australians with strong opposition.

The New Zealand open and junior championships, which will attract the Dominion’s leading players including those who will earlier have defended the Whyte Trophy against Australia, will be played between September 7 and 11.

Canterbury will play Otago in a Division I match on May 1, and may also be included in the New Zealand final of the Wisden Cup, which will this season take the form of a round-robin play-off between the two North Island zonal winners and the South Island zone winner. On last season’s form the finalists might reasonably be expected to be Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury.

The South Island section of all three representative divisions was won by Canterbury last year. Several of the division 2 and 3 teams* fixtures will be played in Christchurch this season. j

A record total of 109 team entries —an increase bf eight over last season have been received by the Canterbury association for the other eight grades of the inter-club competition, which will begin on May 3.