Dropping of silver fern angers former champion

Press, 19 April 1982, Page 36

Dropping of silver fern angers former champion

PA Auckland Australia’s champion sprinter of the 19505, Marlene Matthews, has joined the protests over the dropping of the silver fern for the Brisbane Commonwealth Games. Matthews, now Australia's national athletic coaching convener, is on a brief visit to New Zealand. She is a former 100 yd, 220 yd, and 440 yd world recordholder, a bronze medallist in the 100 m and 200 m at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and winner of .the 100 yd and 220 yd at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games. “I whs very upset and annoyed when I read in the newspaper that the silver fern had been replaced as New Zealand’s emblem. I felt so strongly that I was going to write a letter to the paper,” Matthews said in Auckland at the week-end. “In Australia we always recognise and associate New Zealand representatives with the silver fem emblem, and I know that’s the way it is in many other parts of the sporting world. "To replace it with an N2. Games logo for what I understand is a commercial reason is very sad. "You are commercialising an ideal. “I’m sure that those administrators who made such a decision have little or no idea what it means to sportsmen and sportswomen to wear such a highly prized and traditional emblem in the international arena. “I’ll be in Brisbane for the Games later this year and Fl! be very disappointed and annoyed if the silver fern is not being worn by New Zealand’s representatives. I know Fm speaking for most other sports-loving Australians.”