Three scoreboards for $141,000

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33093, 7 December 1972, Page 1

Three scoreboards for $141,000

The English firm of Hird-Brown, Ltd, has won a contract to supply three scoreboards, of a total value of §141,000, for the 1974 Commonwealth Games.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the executive of the Games Organising Committee. Also present were the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr N. G. Pickering) and the consulting engineer for the Queen Elizabeth II Park complex (Mr Bill Lovell-Smith).

The meeting acted on a recommendation from the chairman of the sports committee (Mr H. C. Blazey) who undertook most of the factfinding and the negotiations with interested manufacturers, of which there were four.

Mr Pickering said that the scoreboards would help to make Queen Elizabeth II Park one of the best sports fields in the world. Mr Blazey had done a particularly good job to ensure that Christchurch got the best at a reasonable cost, the Mayor said. The scoreboards will be erected at the Queen Elizabeth II Park athletic stadium, the adjoining swimming pool, and Denton Oval, the cycling venue. NO DELAY The chairman of the organising committee (Mr R. S. Scott) said yesterday that, as was normally the case at an Olympic or Commonwealth Games, the main scoreboards would be those used at track and field and swimming. “These two sports will be serviced by the most modern electronic equipment yet to be seen at any Commonwealth Games and possibly the most sophisticated used outside the Olympics.” He said that both boards would be capable of showing results with hardly any delay. The athletics scoreboard would be extremely versatile, able to be used for a number of sports. “Both boards are ahead of their time by New Zealand standards, and they are assured of an extremely long life,” said Mr Scott.

Hird-Brown, Ltd, supplied the scoreboard for the main stadium at the 1970 Edinburgh Games and also one of the two main scoreboards at this year’s Munich Olympics. An engineer from the company, Mr D. Masheter, recently visited Christchurch to inspect the sites. In addition to the three main scoreboards, HirdBrown, Ltd, will also supply two portable electronic field boards for the athletics. These will rotate continuously over an arc of 70deg. They are expected to cost about $3600. They will be used for field events and will show a competitor’s number and his performance in metrics.

All of the other Games sports will be serviced by either manual or magnetic boards, which are comparatively simple and inexpensive. Orders for these will be made after it has been determined whether or not they can be manufactured in New Zealand. NINE ROWS

The athletics scoreboard will be situated at the south end of the stadium. It will be 42ft wide and 25ft high. It will contain a top row of 16 letters or numbers and eight lower rows of 25 letters or numbers, ail electronically controlled from a typewriter console in the communications centre.

The board will show lane numbers, the names of competitors, their countries and their finishing times. A clock will show the elapsed time during an event and there will be provision for current world and Commonwealth records.

The cost of this scoreboard is $70,500, which is $2500 more than was estimated by the organising committee when it drew up its first budget in 1970. The swimming scoreboard will be smaller—2sft wide and 15ft 3in high—but will be similar in concept and operation. • It will cost $64,500. . SMALLER, SIMPLER The Denton Oval scoreboard will be much smaller —l3ft wide by Bft high—and simpler than the two at Queen Elizabeth Park, but it will perform similarly. It is expected to cost $6OOO. The organising committee will pay for all three scoreboards, the two at Queen Elizabeth Park coming out of its promised contribution of up to $650,000 towards the cost of the joint complex.