SIDELINES

Press, 27 December 1980, Page 14

SIDELINES

SOMI Ur our iuvu have been holidaying in Australia—busmen’s holidays, really’—and doing their best to hide their nationalities on those many “rest” days during the cricket tests. One reports he stumbled across Roly Rasmussen, that character of Christchurch cricket until he moved to Australia six years ago and a life member of East-Shirley. Rasmussen shamefacedly had to confess that he was forced to take off his tiki on too many occasions for his liking. These days, incidentally, Rasmussen is a first grade manager-coach in Brisbane, and one of his charges is Jeff Thomson. The club sees the former test bowler once or twice a season but he is still good value: five for 12 the other day.

MORE ON THOMSON, he is still firmly in the news, if not in the Australian test side. Members of the New Zealand team recounted how, after Thomson had had a fair spell for Queensland against the tourists, the groundsman came out to remark the bowling crease. Not a dron of whitewash did he need for Thomson, though caHed only a handful of times for no-balling, had missed the crease every time. And one of the best of thousands of television commercials which Kerry Packer shows—when he is not screening a little .cricket to fill in the. gaits between commercials—features Thomson A f'ir imitation of the fruity tones of John 1 Arlott tell of Thomson "coming in for his fourth bowl of the afternoon”—but it is a fourth bowl of jelly. It concludes sadly: "Here’s a chance . . . and he drops it,” as the jelly falls from the spoon.

THOSE COMMENTARIES, which help break up the commercials, are delivered in most part by Richie Benaud, lan Chappell, Frank Tyson, Keith Stackpole and Tony Greig, and accurate and informative they are. They were also pretty’ generous to the New Zealanders. But umpires could justifiably rise in anger against Greig, commentating from Perth, and noting that Alan Border, fielding in a helmet when at short-leg for The leg-spin bowling of Jim Higgs, placed it behind his wicket-keeper, Rod Marsh, when he was fielding “out” for Len Pascoe. “I find that absolutely unbelievable that an umpire would refuse to bold a fieldsman’s helmet. Instead, he has to risk five runs given away if the ball hits the helmet.” The poor old umpire is already too much a clothes-horse, and indeed, on most grounds, a small, covered “cellar” is provided for such placement of valuables. »

DAWN FRASER is alive and well in Sydney-town, even if one group of young New Zealand sportsmen, with only one or two exceptions, were to ask "Who’s Dawn Fraser?” when told of the presence of, arguably, the greatest female swimmer the world has seen. Just a tiring smin uphill walk from the pool in Balmain which bears her name, Dawn Fraser runs the Riverview Hotel, which she owns. Not unnaturally, it is a regular meetingplace for all sorts of sporting types, also not unnaturally, most of them from aquatic sports.

NEW ZEALAND sporting people abound on Queensland’s Gold Coast, and there is a strong cycling group. Des Thomson, a noted road rider of the 1960 s, is an old resident now, and owns shops at Broadbeach and Southport, towns either side of Surfers Paradise. One is managed by John Mildenhall, a member of the noted Wanganui cycling family; and a recent arrival in the area is Wayne Gunderson, of Auckland. The next projected arrival is that of John Dean, who started his noted career in Thomson’s time; they were team-mates at the Mexico Olympics of 1968.

THE AUSTRALIAN cricket cap does not bear the official National Coat of Arms of Australia, nor is it a composite made up of the badges of the various states. During the-last century when gold diggings were in full swing, various commercial houses in Sydney and Melbourne adopted the coat of arms as representative of the industries of ■ Australia. But instead of using the garb of wheat in the fourth quarter, most preferred an anchor. It is this which is seen on the Australian cap.

WE’RE STILL the country cousins to many Australians, and it seems a hopeless cause to get everything right. However, one Brisbane newspaper did reasonably well last week when it mentioned that Monique Radahl (sic) Was a New Zealand and Swedish Olympian. Miss Rodaht did, of course, have a flutter at the Olympics in a New Zealand costume, but Norway, her country of ancestry, I withdrew from the Moscow Games. And then there was , Patfl Medhurst being described as a British professional cyclist : Partly true, maybe, but he did win his spurs as a New Zealander, too, staking a bronze medal with Phil Harland in the tandem at Christchurch.

ERNESTO VERNOLA, aged 73, the winner of the veteran section of the New York marathon for the last two years, has entered the Fourth World Veteran Games in Christchurch next month. Vernola, from Parma in northern Italy, recorded an identical time—three hours, 59 minutes—both years in the New York race. Dubbed the “Abebe Bikela” of his generation, Vernola is the European veteran marathon champion and was third in the veteran world championship in Glasgow. Vemalo, was in demand with American newspaper and television reporters before and after the New York race. He has a best time of 3hr 45min 31s for the marathon this year, a time men a fraction of his age would be happy to claim.

THE LATEST of late entries for the World Veteran Games just had to be accepted by the organisers, Askel Frandsen, a Dane just a year younger than Vernola, desperately wanted to attend but simply could not afford the high cost. But his club would hear nothing of its because of his great contribution to Denmark’s Keep Fit Movement, it shouted him his trip. In Christchurch, he will contest the cross-country and the marathon.