Personalities In Sport

Evening Star, Issue 21007, 22 January 1932, Page 4

Personalities In Sport

No. XXXVIIj A. C. PROCTER. A representative Rugby player and a good solid club cricketer, A. C. Procter has during the past few years shown himself one of the real triers of Otago sport, and the success ho has achieved has been due to his own perseverance and determination to give of his best, a spirit that is to be commended irrespective of the sport or player. Procter is so often known to his sporting confreres as “Joe” that there arc _ few probably who know that iris Christian name is Albert, and, like so many other young men wha have been prominent in Otago Rugby over a period of years, he commenced his Rugby, and also his cricket, under the coaching of Mr A. W. Alloo, at Macnndrew Road School about 1917. The

head master at that time was that great cricketing enthusiast, the late Mr G. W. Macdonald, and he, too, gave the boys many ' useful hints. “Joe” captained the school cricket eleven, and at the same period L. Heazlewood (subsequently to make his mark in big football) was captain of the Rugby team. Procter won the school prize for cricket, and also represented his school at hockey, swimming, and athletics. After leaving Macandrew Road he played cricket and Rugby for the Technical College, and took part in the first series of intercollcgc Rugby matches, the Dunedin team being beaten in the final by 3 points by the Southland Technical College. At this time the subject of this sketch used to have a strenuous day’s work of a Saturday, as he played hockey, Soccer, and Rugby in the one day with the Technical College teams, Immediately on leaving the Technical College Procter linked up with the Zin-, gari-Riohraond Football Club, and was centre three-quarter in the fifth grade team, which included thirteen ex-Mac-andrew Road School boys, and which put .up a remarkable record by winning all thirteen matches and scoring 484 points without having a point scored against it. One team was beaten by 75 points to 0 in an hour’s play. There were some fine coaches in the Zingari-Richmond Club at tho time, including Messrs W, Hobbs, E. Watson, A. Fleury, B. Spiers, and A. Cameron, and at training nights it was the usual thing to see the room packed with boys listening to Bill Hobbs’s lecture and his remarks on players from his

Pen Sketches

[By H.P.S.]

“black hook.” The following year Procter was promoted to the club’s B team in the fourth grade, a side that proved quite as good as the A’s, and played off in the final at Carisbrook with Alhambra A. “Joe’s” advance was most marked that year, and he received a cap for the most improved player. Again tho following season he was awarded a medal as the most improved player in the second grade, and his first senior game was played in 1924 when he was eighteen years of age. The same season he was a member of the Metropolitan team that played against South Otago at Balclutha. In the years that have intervened he has been probably the most dashing back in the Zingari-Richmond Club, of whoso fifteen he has been a member ever since, excepting 1929, when he played for the Old Boys’ team in Waimate, which won the local competition. He was selected in the Sub-union representative team against South Canterbury, hut a leg injury prevented him from playing. Returning to Dunedin, he was included in the Zingari-Richmond seven-a-side team that won the seven-a-side competition at the end of the 1930 season after tho senior team had finished at the bottom of the championship table. It was that season' that marked Procter’s entry into representative Rugby as a wing - ree-quartor, and he played twice against Southland, Wanganui, Hawke’s Bay, South Canterbury, and North Otago, scoring 24 points in the representative games, and leading the list of try-getters. Last season he again won representative honours, being a member of the Otago touring ton. i and playing in matches against Manawhenna, Taranaki, and Southland, He scored eight trios in the rep. games, and also gained the colours awarded by the Zingari-Rich-mond Club for participation in a certain percentage of matches and attention to training. Procter is a strong and dashing runner on the football field and a dangerous man near the lino, being also a good tackier and a player with a good pair of hands. His interest in Rugby has not been confined to the playing field, as he was for two years assistant secretary of the Zingari-Richmond Club. He has been a sound club cricketer, and, playing originally with one of the Grange Club teams, joined up with Carisbrook in the 1924-25 season, winning the third grade howling average with 9.4. The following season, in second grade, he won both the batting and bowling averages, and in the 192829 season played three matches with the senior eleven, taking part in - one memorable match against Albion in which three colts—W. M'Leod, S. Smith, and Procter—knocked up 50 apiece and pulled tho game out of the fire. In the 1929-30 season he secured Mr H. Harrawny’s trophy for fielding in the first grade, and for this department of tho game he is worth his place in the team. An alert man in the field, he is always looking for work. Last season he won the Carisbrook’s bowling average in first grade, and twice he has played in matches for an Otago team against Southland. Procter is a fairly fast bowler, and with a higher delivery would bo a good deal more dangerous. He has proved himself a decidedly useful member of the Carisbrook attack, and is a better batsman than ho is often given credit for, as he showed as recently as last Saturday, when ho knocked up 34 iu about ten minutes. If he were put in a little higher up the list he would possibly make a lot more runs than he does. He has been treasurer of the Carisbrook Club for two years past, and that club has few players more generally liked than the genial subject of this sketch.