PUBLIC HOMAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1933, Page 7

PUBLIC HOMAGE

GLAMOUR OF RECORDS

SPORTING COMPETITION

BAIL.V GROWING KEENER

The pursuit of records in sport is a never-ending chase. From the earliest days of print it has not ceased to thrill; it has a glamour that is peculiar—it affects those who watch mord often and to a greater depth than those who play. Others besides those ultimately concerned with the racing world will be delighted that the veteran trainer of Middleham, Yorkshire, Mr. Matthew Dobson Peacock, has produced his hundredth winner of the season —Heronslea, who won the Ellesmere Handicap at Manchester, writes James Freeman in the "Daily Mail." They would have been equally glad had Gordon Eieharda been able to accomplish the task of riding 200 winning horses in one flat-race period from March to November. It does not matter in the least that both these feats have been accomplished before—when there were fewer race meetings and admittedly fewer runners. If the little, bright-eyed, Toundfaced Eichards had succeeded in passing the double century of winning mounts he would still have been nearly half a hundred behind the great Fred Archer, who in 1885—the year before his death —rode 246 winners on our flat racecourses, actually the fifth year in succession that he had passed the 200 mark. SHQET MEMOEIES. But the public memory is short and conditions in which all forms of sport take place are constantly changing. Competition is fiercer, the science of training And race-riding and running and batting and bowling is becoming more exact and its knowledge wider spread. So to-day personal achievement is accorded its ,proper assessment and the man or -woman whose feat is applauded is given a placo in the sport-• ing history of- a sporting nation.

Seven years ago public attention was focused almost ruthlessly on John 'ELerry Hobbs, the greatest of modern batsmen, when at Taunton in August on two separate days ho equalled and then surpassed W. G. Grace's tale of 126 centuries. It would have* taken a world-shaking crisis to have diverted the national limelight from the Surrey batsman then. The public paid full homage to the genial, great-hearted giant who had passed out of this life ten years earlier; they were in every sense prepared to put in Ms place the trim, athletic figure of the man who has been so worthy a successor.

At the moment the cricket stage is held by Donald G. Bradman, the young Australian on whose shoulders so much depends in the coming Test matches. A lithe, nonchalant figure "he looked' as he strolled to the English wickets in 1930, idling his time so' that his eyes could get accustomed to the light in the open after the shade of the pavilion.

Did any of us then realise that in his compact body lay the strength of mind and will that would defy our bowlers for match after match, so that his unparalleled scores in Test matches of 245; 334, and 232 should follow each other? The middle figure represents the highest individual innings in any Test match played between the two countries; and. if Bradman esceeds.it in the present series, then heaven'help England! THE LIGHTER SIDE. Test records have their lighter side, and none strikes me as being quite so unexpected as the experience of the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, England's wicket-keeper in 1884 agains^ Australia at the Oval. Every member' of the England side was tried with the ball, and the wicket-keeper had the best analysis of all —four wickets for 19 I runs, and all with lobs! '

Just as there can be no adequate comparison between Grace and Hobbs, so, in their different styles, must Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills be kept- apart. It was unfortunate that illness robbed the- mercurial ' Frenchwoman in 1924 of setting up a remarkable record of six consecutive triumphs at Wimbledon, but with this one year as a break she made the total six in. 1925. The stolid, unsmiling, machinelike Helen may equal this record next season. She has already won five times at Wimbledon, and there has been one break in the successes—in 1931, when she did not compete.

There may be men whose iiames have greater magic in £oot,ball, but for all ■time my. own personal admiration will go out to the strong-limbed, stouthearted Robert Crompton, England's great iight back in 34 international games. But for the war, I believe, his record would have been even greater, as even now he is only 53 years of age. KEAL CHAMPIONS. To Welshmen there is no more magic name than that of William Meredith, the outside right, who could never be separated, on the field, from the quill he clenched in his teeth. Meredith played 41 times for Wales, and was brought back', at the age of 50 by Manchester City, his League club, to play in a cup-tie. There is no British boxer in sight who is likely.to equal the record of Ted (Kid) Lewis, the epitome of concentrated fury in the ring. In 1920-21, in sixteen months, Lewis won the British titles of welter, middle, and cruiser weight, and held'them simultaneously, a remarkable performance. Nor is this generation, at home or abroad, likely to produce a golfer to equal the performances of "Bobby" Jones, the self-taught American. In 1930 he achieved the "grand slam" of British and United States championships—four titles in all, 'a feat threequarters of which was accomplished years ago by Harold Hilton, our own amateur champion. . ; Sir George Thursby, the famous iamateur jockey of a, quarter of a'century ago, twice rode the second horse in the Derby—John O'Gaunt in 1904 and Pictori in 1906. This is a performance that is likely to last for all time.

Another unusual record is that of L. Vandorstuyft, a Belgian cyclist, who, four years ago at Montlhery, rode a push-bike behind a motor-cycle for an hour and covered nearly 76-J miles. That record, duly authenticated, always appears unbelievable- and his given rise to nearly as many arguments as Hermit's Derby of 1867, which was not run in a snowstorm.