WRESTLING BOOM IN ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19409, 18 November 1926, Page 4

WRESTLING BOOM IN ENGLAND

BP§RT OF GIANTS. It was over twenty years ago since there' was a wrestling boom, but the clock of time has gone full' circle and miblic interest is reviving in. a. sport ' " -r't of antkmity to recommend it. An open-air tournaoki ;u cxiib.iury I’ark in mail week for the purpose of discovering, if possible, some talent to represent Britain in the next Olympic Games at Amsterdam. It is a far cry from Ulysses to the would-be Olympians of Finsbury, but when the wandering hero of the Odys-. sey plied the outside stroke and backheeled Ajax at the funeral games fot Patroclus lie was only anticipating the methods which are employed to-clay by followers of the same sport. Wrestling was an honored sport in Greece, where the Olympic Games had their first inception. Milo, the famous strong man, is said,' as a mere boy, to have won six Olympic Crowns at wrestling. His modern, prototype was Georges Hackenschmidt, the Russian giant, who came to England at the beginning of the twentieth century, and by his extraordinary feats was responsible for a sensational boom that lasted five or six years. In Egypt and Nineveh of old, if the sculptured has reliefs are tdbe believed, wrestling was seriously practised, and Japanese traditions says that nearly 2,000 years ago two great champions of the mat fought before the Mikado Suinin, an ancestor of the present ruler of Japan. To-day we have Yukio Tani, the little lithe Jap, with his ju-jitsu mysteries," back again after a retirement of many years, making a successful challenge at the ago of forty-two with his science against men double his own'.weight,, and thus providing an interesting link' between the hoary past and a loss- 1 sophisticated present. England was always partial to tho wrestling game. In Will Shakespeare’s time Orlando wrestled for his credit, and a member of the. Duke’s retinue refers in ‘As You Like It ’ to tho curiosity of “ breaking of ribs for tne sport of ladies.” In the reign of Henry 111., there was a groat match at St. Giles’s Fields between the men of Westminster and the citizens of London. The citizens won easily enough, but when the return visit was paid to Westminster and the citizens of London bailiff of that district showed a poor sporting spirit, for he badly maltreated tho citizens by way of restoring the balance (states a ' Daily News ‘ routributor). . ■“ The strongholds of English wrestling to-day are in the north and the far west. In Lancashire and Cumberland they follow their tourneys with unabated enthusiasm, and keenly exploit the moves and “chips” that are centuries old. Names like rhose of doughty George Steadman, who did not retire until he completed his jubilee as a champion, George Lowden, Tom Lnngmore, who once instructed Charles Dickens ho\v to take a hold, and “ Belted Will ” Richardson, who had 240 prize belts hanging in his house, are still spoken of with reverence. In Cornwall and Devon, they fought on Spartan lines indeed, for the wrestlers used to tip their hoots with iron and kick each other on the shins. Forty years ago I remembered chatting with a bald-headed old Cornishraan of ninety who showed me terrible scars on his legs which ho had received in the village tournaments of his youth." The old boy had some rare tales to tell, and his" ancient, wrinkled visage lit up with excitement as he trolled on a whistling falsetto a wrestling verse which ran something like this:

So fill up vour flowing bumpers,_ And gaily we will sing, Wo’ll wrestle on from morn to night, Wo’re champions of the ring!

One of the greatest wrestlers in the West Country of old was a man named J. Conpe, who was nicknamed “ Little Cock/’ Although only off Sin in height, he was master of all the rings in Devon, Cornwall, and Somersetshire, and the historian amusingly complains that owing to his exertions in the sport he became incurably bow legged in his later years. Then there was “ Blind Will, a Devon wrestler named Wreyfard, who used to be led into the ring by a boy. He was permitted the privilege of first getting a firm hold on Ins opponent’s collar. Ho seldom failed by the kicks and trips of the art to throw his rivals, although they were frequently bigger men than himself. On the Continent, especially before the war, wrestling of the Uraicolloman persuasion, in which no holds below the waist or trips are permitted, was very popular. One of the greatest exponents of the art, leaving out Hackenschmidt, who was more of a public entertainer, was the mighty Padoubny, a Russian of nearly 7ft in height, and winner of innumerable tournaments in all parts cf Europe. He came to England and wrestled at a tournament held at the old Hengler’s Circus, now the Palladium. . A man of almost childlike simplicity, Padoubny was inordinately proud of his long, fair Viking-like moustache. On one° occasion he was wrestling against a man named Apollon, who weighed almost 20 stone, and was correspondingly strong. Apollon was so indiscreet during the bout as to pull the Russian’s moustache’. This wounded the vanity of Padoubny, who rose to his feet, like an incensed Titan. Lifting the offender high over his head, he carried Apollon across the ring as if he were a mere baby, and then flung him down on the Press table, which, much to the discomfiture of the scribes, was immediately shattered in pieces by the impact. Scratch the Russian and you find a Tartar indeed 1