ATHLETICS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 799, 23 April 1910, Page 12

ATHLETICS.

(By "Mercury.")

The" action of the Wellington and Brooklyn Harriers in joining forces last Saturday had the result-of bringing together a record pack for Wellington, despite the fact that , ' members of the older'club mustered disappointingly. The use of. the Brooklyn Hall was kindly placed at the disposal of the .combined clubs by Mr. A.,H.,Fullford for dressing purposes. . '. ■

ihe.Brooklyn kds, wlo looked smart and neat iii their new uniforms, sent out 1 two of their number to select a course, F. Hodson and.L. Barnes sharing the responsibility, and; in addition, H. A. Lamb, 'of' the Wellington Club, went out and kept a watchful, eye on the trail-laying, bo as to '•■ prevent" the too-lavish:nse of paper, and the consequent shortening -of the course. Complete success, | oro;v;ned'the('-eflo'rtß <l of:tlie trio, who were" commended at the' conclusion of the run for the good' course • picked and' the plain, manner in which it was marked. ,!, .'-.'. ■".'. .

The aojiualpack comprised thirty-five runners, and the run was controlled by the Brooklyn captain (P. A. .Wilton) as pacemaker, and by his brother (F. Wilton),, skipper of the Wellington Club, as whipper-in. \ :. Good'form was shown by the inajority.of;the runners on the run down the ridge towards. Island Bay, -and it was noticeable that tho Brooklyn 'novices were scarcely,.over at .the: rear. ■■ The run hoino against tho wind and uphill found ;out .the weak spots, but. the moderate pace set enabled all to keep well.bunched. , . ■-'■■'. /• .- ■-.-.

A 200 yds. run in at the finish resulted in R. E. Bust, Wellington, gaining first place, with C. Murray (Brook'lyn), a promising novice, close on-his heels, and W. Chartrcs (Wellington), third. Although beaten for first place, Brooklyn, secured three of the first five positions—a meritorious performance. Members of the two packs afterwards fraternised over, afternoon tea, which was provided by Mrs. Fullford at her residence. A pleasant afternoon's sport was closed with cheers for the host and hostess,' whose assistance on this occasion went a long way towards creating a good spirit between the two clubs.

To-day the Wellington Club runs from Karori and Brooklyn from. Thorndon Baths. '■ ' ■ '.-'■

There must be many among the residents of. Wellington to-day who patronised athletic sports in the early days—before the N.Z.A.A.A. was constituted, and, indeed, before there was any distinction made between amateur and professional at all. To these the following paragraphs from the "Wellington Independent," dated January 2, ,1874, will be of peculiar interest, while the name of Pollock forms a connecting link between the past and present, as far as;.the - younger generation is concorned. The paragraph rune:—

"100 Yards Handicap.—Pollock (sor.), 1; Delaney (lyd.), 2; Bishop (2yd.), 3. Coppin (Australia), lyd; Johnson, 2yd.; Churton, 3yd.;, N. Pearce, syd., also started. Pollock had all the best of the start, and was level with the lead J ing man when 15 yards had been covered. Keeping up the rush, he got two yards in front, and maintained that advantage to the finish, Delaney and Bishop making a hard race for second. From. 40 yards they raced inch for inch, but, in the.last 20 yards, the former managed to Ret a yard in front. Pollock ran merely for sport, ind the prize, therefore, went'to Delaney."

The Pollock mentioned is ; Mr. J. H., of that ilk, now president of the W.A.A.C, ho remembers the incident well. It appears that, at that time, Mr. Pollock- had left the track, after a successful career as scratch man, and was, on this occasion, acting as starter. Aocording to the report under notice, the sports were attonded_ by "His Excellency, the Governor, his' Honour the superintendent, and his Worship- the Mayor." When thrse notables arrived they were, received by Mr. Gco. Crawford, the then president of the Caledonian Society, which body was conducting tho meeting, and expressed u desire to fee Mr. Pollock in action.

J. H. P. had not entered, and thereforo had not been handicapped, but (his was waived, and the 100 yards rehandicapped with him on scratch, and run.off, with ihp result as above. Not having entered Mr. Pollock refused to lake any prize. Apparently he was as good a sport then as now, which is saying much. In the'"Referee" to hand this week both "Prodigal" and "Argus" (tho pro-' fossional athletic scribes) quoto extensively from an articlo on "Walking," that recently appeared in this column. To "Mercury's remarks "Prodigal" (Mr. R. C'oombes) adds:—l thoroughly agree with "Mercury," and would suggest that if tho council of tho N.Z. A.A.A. take tho matter of walking judges in hand, they should also deal with the yuestiun of that branch of

field games known as putting the shot. It is a matter of common knowledge that anything in the method of propelling the 161b. sphere has paused muster as a "putt" in many parts of the Dominion.' I remember, when at the Championship Games at Christcnuich, at Exhibition time, being amazed at some of the styles in vogue —and the possessors of these styles assured me that' their melhods had never before been questioned. A discussion of much interest to tho running fraternity has been going on in the "Bulletin" on the recent record times established by Jack Donaldson in South Africa. "Timing" ie an evergreen subject, and anything fresh thereon is always of interest. Moreover, tho "Bulletin's" correspondent is evidently up in his subject (he is strongly suspocted of being a one-time runner, of noto, and now a prominent figure in athletic matters on the other side), so his remarks are published in toto. He writes:—A good sound judgo of the game wouldn't accept 9 3-iJsec. for 100 yards by Donaldson or any other ped.j and most of tho hardshelled old pros who are still nicking up the cinders merely grin at such a time. I consider Jack Donaldson the finest runner in the world from 100 yards to a half-mile, and tipped him to beat Arthur Postle iu a three-dis-tance match two years ago, when I competed with him at Bendigo, and saw the "Blue Streak" win heats, semifinal, and finals of tho 130, .220 and 440 yards handicaps— a wonderful performance on bad tracks. He was then a slow starter, and a wonderful finisher; but under the guidance of "Mick" Terry, his trainer, Jack has made great progress "out of the holes."

Donaldson is under the wing of "Bufe" Naylor, an athletic showman, who promoted the match, ran it on his own track, held a watch, along with. two others, and was the lock, stock and barrel of, the show. A record for.the race meant a rise for the winner, as a draw, and_ more money for Nay lor. 'ihe three timekeepers differed; hut Naylor's 9Jsec. was given as average time or something. To show how record "times' , are sometimes managed, take Dan J; Kelly's 9 on June 23, WOO, .■« • Spokane, Washington (U.S.A.). When Duffy fell out with Sullivan,' the big dog of amateur athletics in America, Sullivan tried to rub Duffy's name off the record boots, but failed. Ho then put Kelly up to. run m a 100 yds. handicap at Spokane, iielly was a good sound runner, but no oven-time man. Ho managed to win by inches from a very average field, but his time was a cracker—cabled' all over the world. The clocks made other runners in the raoo pip "evens," but it was generally, known in athletic Circles that "these., couldn't get within 4-vds. of it. So much for the previous world's record, Arthur Duffy was a past master "at anticipating a. etarter, is his out-of-condition runs in Australia proved. Runners like old Bill MManus, whom I consider the most wonderful that ever put a shoe on a track anywhere in the world, merely grins at those yards inside oren time for 100 yds. Arthur Postle ran an exhibition 100 yds. at the "'Wren Five Hundred, meeting, held at the Exhibition (Melbourne) some years ago, and the time was given as lOsec. As a matter of fact, "Jack" Marsh, with a slight start, had to i slow down for Arthur to win, and the official watch I inspected had stopped in the wrong side of 10 sec. The papers, nevertheless, gave ,the time lOsec. Apart,from the alleged time put up by Donaldson, the fact that he ,beat Postle doesn't jrove that he is running faster than Postle *vei did. Aithur has been racing consistently for years; and has been on the track longer than Donaldson, who. is, comparatively, a recent ■ product. Postle won the Maryborough (Victoria) 130 yds. off-4yds in 12sec. in 1906—a matter of 6yds. inside ovens. "Bill! , M'Manus did exactly the same performance in 1900. There comes a time when a-man. gets stale or goes hack, and even if two are of equal calibre, there is such a thing as one of them having, "a, day out."'- I certainly, cast doubts on 9fsec.;.' but .it is all the same to me who is credited with the time. The fact .'that Donaldson beat Holway by 4Jyds. is no proof that the time was a record. HoJway got a bad start .and was left early by both runners. .... . ■'■■

Last! evening the Wellington Centre was again to , deal with the matter of Mr,_ H. S. Robinson's much-debated motion re the' ethics -, of centre correspondence. At the time of writing, the only Tesult attained has been to assure the Auckland Centre that, a condition of affairs that never existed at all did not exist with the sanction and approval of, the. Wellington Centre—an .assurance that has completely mystified the Aucklanders, and no wonder. As a matter o? fact, there are delegates on the Wellington Centre who are also completely mystified, and it is to be hoped that the whole disagreeable incident will have permanently closed by the time this appears in print.