PUBLIC HOMAGE

Evening Star, Issue 21320, 26 January 1933, Page 13

PUBLIC HOMAGE

GLAMOUR OF RECORDS SPORTING COMPETITION 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 liar—it affects those who watch more often and to a greater depth than those who play. Others besides those ultimately concerned with the racing world will he delighted that the veteran trainer of Middleham, Yorkshire, Mr Matthew Dobson Peacock, has produced his hundredth winner of tho season—Heronslea, who won the Ellesmere Handicap at Manchester, writes James Freeman, in The ‘Daily Mail.’ They would have been equally glad had Gordon Richards been able to accomplish the task of riding 200 winning horses in one flat-race period from March to November. ft 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, round-faced Richards had succeeded m passing the double century of winning mounts ho would still _ have been nearly half a hundred behind the great Fred Archer, who in 1885—the year before his death—rode 240 winners on our flat racecourses, actually the fifth year in succession that ho had passed the 200 mark. SHORT MEMORIES. 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 place in the sporting history of a sporting nation. Seven years ago public attention was focused almost ruthlessly on John Berry Hobbs, the greatest of modern batsmen, when at Taunton in August on two separate days he 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 uaid 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 his 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 6. Bradman, the young Australian on whose shoulders so much depends in the coming test matches. A lithe, nonchalant figure he looked as ho 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 strengh 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 exceeds it in the present series, then heaven help England! THE LIGHTER SIDE. Tost records have their lighter side, and none strikes mo as being quite so unexpected as the experience of the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, England’s wicketkeeper in 1884 against Australia at the Oval. Every member of the England side was tried with the ball, and ’ the wicketkeeper had the best analysis of all —lour wickets for 19 runs, and all with lobs! Just as there can he no adequate comparison 1 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, hut 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 lias been one break in the successes—in 1931, when she did not compete. There may be men whose names have greater magic in football, but lor all time my own personal admiration will go out to the strong-limbed, stouthearted Robert Crompton, England’s great right back in thirty-four international games. But for the war I believe his record would have been oven greater, as even now he is only fiftythree years of age. REAL CHAMPIONS. To Welshmen there is no more magic name than that of William Meredith, the outside 'right, who could never bo separated on the field from the quill ho clenched in his teeth. Meredith played forty-one times for Wales, and was brought back at the age of fifty 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 ” .(ones, tho self-taught American. In 1930 lie achieved tho “ grand slam ” of British and Hinted 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 amateur jockey of a quarter of a century ago, twice rode the second horse in the Drcby—John o’ Gaunt in 1904 and Picton In 1906. This is a performance that is likely to last for all time. Another unusual record is that of L. Vanderstuyit, a Belgian cyclist, who four years ago at Montlhery rode a push bike behind a motor cycle for an hour and covered nearly 76J- miles. That record, duly authenticated, always appears unbelievable, and has given rise to nearly as many arguments as Hermit’s Derby of 1867, which was not run in a snowstorm.