HEAD HELD HIGH IN SPORT

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 12

HEAD HELD HIGH IN SPORT

RECORD BRITISH SEASON GREAT PLAYERS COMPETING The recent announcement of the names of the Australian cricketers chosen to visit England brings a reminder that we are approaching what promises to be the greatest carnival of outdoor sport ever known (writes F. J. Coles, in the ‘ London Daily graph’)From the middle of May to the end of August Great Britain will be the battle-ground of world rivalry in sports. Here is a catalogue of outstanding events The fight for the ashes begins in ■June with the first test match at Nottingham . At lawn tennis Britain defends the Davis Cup at Wimbledon for the first time for twenty-one years. 'Also at Wimbledon our tennis women will challenge America for the Wightman Cup. Leading amateur golfers of Britain and America meet in the Walker Cup match at St. Andrews, Athletes from all the dominions will be at the White City in August Bank Holiday Week for the second Empire Games. At long last England approaches the fray with her head in the air. For a decade and more after the war our sporting stock was at zero. We were beaten, often badly beaten, in the games we gave^to Europe, to America, and the dominions. THRILLING PROSPECT. Last year the pendulum swung back. In the winter of 1933 Jardine’s team regained the ashes lost at the Oval three years earlier. In the summer Perry and Austin and their colleagues brought home the Davis Cup, which we hold for the first time since 1913; Miss Dorothy Round reached the women’s final at Wimbledon; Perry went to New York and won the American championship. Easterhrook last year was within two strokes of winning the open golf championship, and Britain recaptured the Ryder Cup from America. We should do even better in 1934. Indeed, when the dust of battle has gone I believe that England will have fully regained her supremacy in the world of games. Every title at stake is within our reach. It is a thrilling prospect, this coining season of big cricket, tennis, golf, and athletics. It will be anticipated with all the more liveliness from the fact that in all these sports new personalities will be seen among the entrants. Lawn tennis is a good example. For six weeks, from mid-June to the end of July, Wimbledon is .to be the centre of world tennis. Many fresh faces will be there. Some familiar ones will be missing, too, for since the last Wimbledon Henri Cochet and Ellsworth Vines have joined the professional ranks, and I believe it is very doubtful whether Mrs Wills Moody will be well enough to participate. , ‘ LAWN TENNIS PLAYERS. In the wake of Vines will come Frank Parker, whom America acclaims as her future champion. A few days ago Parker celebrated his eighteenth birthday. He will be one of Wimbledon’s youngest seekers of the lawn tennis crown. I am told lie is a colourful personality. Beginning as a ball boy at a local club at Milwaukee, Parker, whose real name is Poikowska (he is of Polish origin), was taken in hand by Mercer Beasley, the man who first coached Vines. Last year this young prodigy beat the Americans, Sutter, Shields, Lott, and Wood, and the Australian, M'Grath. Wimbledon will watch his progress with eager interest. Miss Helen Jacobs is defending her woman’s title, and with her will ! be three newcomers from California—Miss Alice Marble, Miss Carolin Babcock, and Miss Josephine Cruickshank. Miss Marble, we are told v has a'“smash ” and service like a man’s, and is regarded as America’s best woman player after Miss Jacobs and Mrs Moody. Wimbledon must be the poorer if Mrs Wills Moody’s regrettable illness prevents her from attending. But Miss Jacobs, her girlhood friend and rival—they lived in the same street and were educated at the same school at Berkeley, California—is returning to Europe with an enhanced reputation as American women’s champion. There is a chance, too, that England will be welcoming the greatest of all golfers, Bobby Jones, in the coming summer. But if he- makes the journey it will only be as a spectator of events of which four years ago he was the dominating figure. While we may never see another Jones, many striking American personalities are to take part in our leading golf events. One is Francis Ouiraet, who, starting life as a caddie, is now captain of America’s Walker Cup team. Ouimet, a bond broker in Boston, Mass., has had a remarkable career. At twenty he was concerned in one of the most sensational encounters in the history of the game. In a triple tie for the United States open championship he defeated two famous English golfers, Vardon and Ray. Subsequently he was barred from amateur golf because he accepted employment in a sporting goods house. GOLF AND CRICKET. Golfers in England know Ouimet well. The young man they are looking forward to meeting for the first time is Johnny Goodman, aged twenty-four, who as a barefooted boy earned a precarious living as a caddie at Omaha, in the Middle West. He is now open champion of America. In his early days, when money was scarce, Goodman “ worked his passage ” to championships as an attendant on long-distance cattle trains. He is a member of the American amateur team which' will play in the Walker Cup match at St. Andrews. In the professional golf sphere Densmore Shute, a tall, lanky man who gives the impression of a walking lamp-post,. will be at Sandwich to defend his title as British open champion. The one honour America has never held is the British women’s golf title. This year she is sending over Miss Virginia Van Wie, a dark-featured Chicago girl. In all probability Miss Van Wie will be accompanied by Mrs Glenna Collett Vare, who since her last visit to England has given birth to a daughter. The Australian cricketers arrive in England towards the end of April. They are going to be a specially interesting side, because exactly half their party of sixteen are coming to England for the first time. One of the newcomers likely to make his mark is W. J. O’Reilly, in whom Englishmen will see a revival of the famous medium-paced bowlers Australia used to produce. Mr “ Plum ” Warner, who saw a great deal of O’Reilly in Australia last

winter, assures me that he is a bowler we shall like and admire. Over 6ft tall, he has a free, bounding run and seems to delight in every ball he sends down. Our batsmen who have played against O’Reilly in Australia have the highest opinion of him. DON BRADMAN’S FAME. Where the Australians are concerned, however, the one man cricketers at Home want to see is, of course, Don Bradman. He is to-day as magnificent a batsman as four years ago, when, a nightmare to our bowlers, he made 3,170 runs during the tour here and averaged 99.06. Bradman, at the age of twenty-five, holds nearly all the batting records. Whether or not he sets up new records, English crowds will delight in watching this short, boyish figure with long arms, broad shoulders, and supple wrists, who hits the ball as hard as, if not harder than, any living player. Not since the Olympic Games of 1908 has an athletic event of the importance of the forthcoming Empire Games been contemplated in England. All the dominions and lyidia are sending over big contingents of athletes. Canada alone intends to have over 100 representatives. Many historic duels will be refought, and the one that will most surely capture the public imagination will be the meeting over a mile of J. E. Lovelock, the world’s record beater, and J. F. Comes. The Canadians, Phil Edwards and Alex. Wilson, probably the best allround runners in the world, may make the Empire Games their farewell to the track. Other notable visitors will be G. A. Golding, the tall Australian who was a finalist in the Olympic Games quarter-mile at Los Angeles, and W. J. Walters and D. J. Joubert, of South Africa*