BLIND MAN’S MAGIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21976, 10 June 1933, Page 19

BLIND MAN’S MAGIC

MASSAGE TOR FOOTBALLERS. There is one man, Mr R. H. Cook, who knows the famous Everton Football Club players in Liverpool only by the shape of their legs and the sound of their voices. He attends all their home matches but has never seen them play. Mr Cook became almost totally blind as a result of war service in the East, but after 18 months’ training in massam> rvork at St. Dunstan’s he was such an expert that more famous footballers have gone to him than he can count. The Everton players say there is magic in his hands. “ I never miss a home match at Everton,” Mr Cook says. “Although I can see nothing on the field, I always know what is happening through listening to the crowd and feeling which way they are turning .and swaying. In the dressing rooms I can immediately recognise alf the players by touching their legs. Each has little peculiarities which often the eye cannot detect.” When Tom Griffiths (now of Middlesbrough), had an operation for cartilage trouble, Mr Cook worked so hard with him that, only six weeks after the operation, the ex-Evertonian and Welsh international centre-half played in four games in nine days.