“GANGWAY, BUDDY!”

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 June 1939, Page 7

“GANGWAY, BUDDY!”

PRINCETON MILE RACE

CAUSTIC U.S. COMMENTS

[BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.]

NEW YORK, June 19

The English mile runner and world record-holder, S. C. Wooderson, who ran last in a mile match race against leading American runners at Princeton (New Jersey) on Saturday, will return to England on June 28. In the race on Saturday Wooderson had claimed that he was crowded against the rail, but he did not make a formal protest, and the referee ruled the incident as “an unfortunate accident.” Wooderson declined to compete in the American National Championship on July 3. “I will never race in the United States again,” he declared today. “If it had not been for that bumping which threw me off my stride, I would have won the race. I was feeling fine and was waiting for the final straightaway to uncover my finishing run. Remember the rules require two yards’ racing room.” Wooderson will possibly get a chance for his revenge against the Americans at the White City in August as the American team will go to the Continent shortly. The American newspapers agree that Rideout and Wooderson were shoulder to shoulder at the turn, but some consider the Englishman merely misjudged his step. The New York “Herald-Tribune” comments in an editorial: “It is an exception when an English athlete lives up to his advance publicity. We are not very good at fencing, Soccer, driving automobiles round sharp turns, or tossing flags in the air, but for the most part our track and field individuals, swimmers, rowers, polo players, golfers, tennis players, and prize fighters are a bit better than the best of the rest of the world. We feel our guest can do better when he is less frightened, when the weather is cooler, or if he is not bumped at the last turn, but Saturday’s race was properly Fenske’s with Wooderson last.”

The athletics writer of the “New York Times” says Wooderson could not have won. He played into the hands of the Americans by setting the pace for all but the last 220 yards. The “New York Times” quotes an unidentified competitor as saying that he saw Rideout a foot ahead at the bend, and saw Wooderson run into him.

Jack Miley, writing in the “New York Post,” observes: “The English do not need any help in defeating themselves. They have got what it takes to wind up as losers. The British polo team was beaten in two straight games in an ignominous fashion, which is as it should be, as the English -play polo as they do everything else —-sitting down.”

“All runners bear wide when they feel someone sprinting up to pass them,” says the athletics writer of the New York “Daily News.” “A European beat Hill in the Los Angeles Olympic Games with the same finish. The American did not holler ‘foul.’ To be a champion one runs with the head as well as the feet.”

Writing for the “Daily. Mirror,” Bob Considine says: “There probably has not been a first-class mile in years that did not have a certain amount of elbowing and ‘Gangway, buddy!’ to it. It is unfortunate that it should have happened to Wooderson, whose appearance the British writers invested with as much unfair importance as the German journalists heaped on Schmeling’s second bout with Louis. Our milers are too self-centred to have ganged on Wooderson. There is not one of them who would not spike his mother if the old lady got in the way of his winning.”

Wooderson amazed 28,000 spectators at the Princeton invitation meet on Saturday by finishing fifth and last in the international mile race.

“UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT”

(Recd. June 20, 1 p.m.) PRINCETON, June 19

Wooderson said: “In ordei' to clear the atmosphere of any. false statements attributed to me, I would like to say, in regard to Saturday’s incident that it was an unfortunate accident, occurring in the heat of the race. It is forgotten.”