ATHLETES WHO DEFY TIME

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12021, 26 December 1924, Page 11

ATHLETES WHO DEFY TIME

GROWING OLD IN SPORT. In making his first appearance fpr England, versus America at" the .age of 47. Colonel'Melvill "has established a. polo reodrd, .declares Major N. W. Fraser in tho “Daily Chronicle.”, Indeed, the duly modern approach, in other strenuous game's, to his achievement, is supplied by F. Gilbert, who was 89 when lie "won his first English Rugby cop in 1923. Nearly fifty years' ago, however, A. N. Hornby staggered j the Rugby world by getting, his. first English colours shortly before .his thir’tieth. birthday, while he had turned -36> jrihen he play’ed his last game for the | Rose and captained the side. In those : days 30 was regarded as the extreme i limit of a Rugby or almost any hard: game player’s life.' ' This one ,to the modern athlete’s remarkable .playing longevity. Tliere are, of course, septuagenarian, octogenarian and even nonogenarian walkers, cyclists, golfers, and,; bowls. players, ..hut if ■■'•.the, issue be confined to the 'first-class games arena. there is a big . array, of players who' would once have been considered in their athletic dotage. William Meredith is retiring from first-class football, but it is only a few months' ago since,- aged 47, he played for Manchester'City against Brightenand Hove Albion in the third round of the F-A. while he was 43 When he won the last of forty-eight Welsh caps. - Still in .-League- football are , Sam Hardy, Albert Iremonger and Jook Rutherford, who were respectivelyborn in 1883, 1884, and 1885.In first-class county crioket there is ■Hie evergreen W’ G. Qiiaife, of Warwickshire,- who is 54, J, H. King! ;of Leioester, 51,” and G-' R.' ( 'Cpx, of Sussex,’who will be 50 this month. Fortyeix years old Wilfred Rhodes’s record feat of taking over 100 wickets ami making over 1000 runs for the fifteenth time is" fresh in the meinory. The real hero of the last open golf championship, was. J, .H. .Taylor, who was bom in 1871, and might well have ■beaten Walter Hagen but for that crippling attack of lumbago. Taylor is a grandfather, as .was Charles Hutchings,- when aged 53,. he won the amateur golf championship of-1902.: ■ “Anno .Domini” beat Norman Brookes in this year’s -lawn 'tennis 1 championship, but he gave a /great' ’display for a man of 40, while M. J. 1 Ritehie, who. will he .;54-■iiisxt month, icmttinues to ymiquidi much younger ’men in big Nor should' ' Colonel Mayes be forgotten. . Sir i George Thomas ,was 40 when he .won the last rfour . successive. All-fllnglafld Badminton, championships in-1923, and he’ considers • Badminton an even' more exacting game than >lawn tennis.:Other examples could he given,' hut unquestionably athletes “liveO longer than in Victorian days.