POPULAR MAN WITH A GUN

NZ Truth, Issue 1080, 12 August 1926, Page 6

POPULAR MAN WITH A GUN

i^IFJS always has been and always Li will be a great race for T. W. • ("Dome") Leslie, starter m Wellington for more than a score- of years, one-time brilliant athlete, all-roUnd sportsman and authority on pretty well every branch of athletic activity that is worth while. < , His familiar face and penetrating blue eyes — which seem to remain unchanged as the years go by— look on everything with the spirit of the true sportsman. A man is either good or bad to "Dorrie."' He is either. possessed; of good material (athletically speaking)) that will lend itself to the skilful trainer's manipulations, or he -isn't,, and that, is probably why T.W.L. has never trained a man for a failure m all his long career. Over at Days Bay, Leslie nursed', th,e famous ..All Blacks before they set out on their wonderfully successful career, and there was no happier man m the whole civilized world than "Dorrie" to have the honor of hoisting the New Zealand flag on the Wellington town hall when, the All Blacks disposed of their former vanquishers of .twenty years before. There is a story m that. Twenty years before, "Dorrie" had developed the habit of placing the New Zealand flag: at the foot of the flag-pole m preparation for hoisting it as soon as

the news got thr.ough. Then came the I terrific hews: that the All" Blacks had been. defeated by Wales. . : "Borrie"- had to. alter those flags, and although there ■wrere some who aaid that even he would not be game to hoist the flag- against the Air Blacks he did iv and went, breakfastless that morning . and brooded most sullenly. He nearly broke the flag-pole m his* zest to get, the flag up when the tables were turned on the last memorable tour. , - .!_•■. It was way back m 1904 when "jporrie" became - sta.rter 'a.t Welling-? ton. following the KLtch ■which occurred' over the Shrubb-Duffy meeting .rand even then . as ' a promi-, nent professional dthlete,' he was an instantaneous success as a starter cause he knew his job and allowed no one to beat' the gun. Talking of guns, it can probably be said of T.W.L;. that he has fired more guns into the air than any anti-air-craft strafer during the Big Argument. -Still as vigorous as any youngster could wish to be; eyer watchful for what Is afoot m < the wide sphere of s^port,' arid a popular one wi£h "the younger generation- "Dorrie" will always be one of the old school where things were- taught properly and thoroughly and who— even m after life — prove that "old soldiei's never die, but only fade away." ■* .'