Coach’s last Games

Press, 5 August 1976, Page 30

Coach’s last Games

For Ross Gillespie, a gold medal at Montreal was the ultimate success after coaching New Zealand hockey teams for five years. Before he left for Montreal six weeks ago he said it would be his last tour as coach of a New Zealand team. He decided that business and his wife and three children deserved greater consideration. Yesterday, Mr Gillespie confirmed that Montreal was his last tour, but added that he would be available within New Zealand to help with national teams. He said he would be available for the national selection panel of which is he is now convener, providing it did not preclude another Christchurch person from a place on the panel. “I will maintain my association with hockey. I have learnt a tremendous amount over the last five years and I want to be able to hand that knowledge on.”

In Auckland, the Olympic team’s goal-keeper, Trevor Manning, talked yesterday of “the longest 10 minutes of hockey I’ve ever played in my life.” Manning, in a wheelchair and with his left leg in plaster from his hip to his ankle, arrived at Auckland Airport with the first group from the team at Montreal to return home. Manning’s left knee-cap was broken 10 minutes from time in the hockey final when a ball travelling, he estimates, about lOOm.p.h. hit his knee. Manning said: "There is not much padding around the knee and when a ball hits it that hard something’s got to go. “The situation was at the stage that a goal-keeper could not be removed or replaced. We could not even bring on a doctor to see what was wrong. “It was extremely painful but I didn’t realise it was broken. Because of the pain I can’t really remember a lot of what happened after I was injured. “I do know that the Aussies knew it was very hard for me to move to the left and that my reflexes had gone.” “I just hung on hoping our guys would keep the ball down the other end of the field as much as possible. If it had gone into

extra time I couldn’t have carried on.” Manning “hobbled” to the dias to be presented with his gold medal and later went from the village about 400 m to a bar to celebrate with the team. “I only stayed about an hour because the knee was hurting so much and it took me about 45 minutes to get back to the village. I got no sleep at all that night and next morning when I went to the team doctor we found out from an X-ray the kneecap was broken.” Manning said his knee would have to be operated on when he returned home to Wellington. The hockey captain, Tony Ineson, said it had still not sunk in. that the team had won the gold. “We’ve been too boozed for the last 96 hours to take it in,” he said. “Give us a couple of days and we’U start to realise what’s happened over there.”

Tennis.—Zeljko Franulovlc. of Yugoslavia, has upset the secondseeded American. Arthur Ashe, 6-4, 6-4. in a second round match at the SUS 160,000 Volvo tennis tournament in North Conway, New Hampshire. The top seed, Jimmy Connors, of the United States, breezed to a 6-1, 6-1, victory over Hans Kary, of Austria.

Golf.—Ben Crenshaw’s prize of 1U522.800 fo ra second-place finish in the Pleasnt Valley classic has widened his lead at the top of the 1976 United States tour earnings list. Crenshaw’s total is $U5213,201.