ALL SPORTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16261, 9 February 1927, Page 3

ALL SPORTS

ROSE AND TOM HEENEY. OPINIONS OF WELL-KNOWN SPORTSMAN. An interesting resume of opinions on many sports was given to a Napier Telegraph representative! by Mr. Spencer Gollan, who is at present on one of his periodic visits to Napier. Mr. Gollan, whose name is too well known in athletic connections to need further praise or eulogy, proved extremely reticent regarding his own doings in the realm of sport, but in the course of an interesting chat, provided the press man with some interesting sidelights upon sport of all kinds, both in the Homeland and in New Zealand. Tho first subject that came up in the course of conversation was the state of athletics at Home, and in this connection Mr. Gollan expressed himself as palpably disappointed in the forni shown by Randolph Rose, the New Zealand distance champion, during his trip to the Old Country.

“Rose never had the appearance of a champion,” said Mr, Gollan. “People at Home were surprised at the times lie put up in New Zealand, for he did not do anything yjprthy of note on the Home tracks.

Mr. Gollan was full of praise for Dr. Peltzer, the German runner, who recently cracked the world’s half mile, record. The Germans are speedily coming to the front in athletics,” he said, “and Peltzer is a classic example of an athlete, being a stylist in his every movement. He put up his world’s record at Stamford Bridge, and thus should make even better times on American and Continental tracks, where atmospheric conditions are better suited to athletics. LOST THEIR STING. “The modern boxer has lost- the art of hitting,” declared Mr. Gollan, and qualified his remarks by stating that few of the present-day British and Australian schools of pugilists had a real punch in their repertoire. Tom Heeney, the New Zealand heavyweight, was slow and short of reach, hutstrong and plucky and a very thin line separated him from Phil Scott. Mr. Gollan was of opinion that the Gisborne hoy should have been given another match with the English heavyweight, champion. I was pleased to see that Tunney beat Dempsey on the old method of fighting, the straight- left,” continued' Mr. Gollan. “That was the foundations of the attack of such puglistic giants of the past as Jackson, Slavin and Fitzsimmons in the -days when Larry Foley had his boxing school in Sydney.” Mr. Gollan gave only one example of his own powess in the. realm of sport and this was in connection with sculling. In the summer of 1904, in company with Tom Sullivan, of Auckland, and George Town of Sydney, he propelled a triple sculler down the Thames from Oxford to London, a distance of 160 miles, during which they had to pass through 33locks, accomplishing the feat in 13 hours 55 minutes. This time had never been equalled, although attempts had been made by ’Varsity scullers who had gone into strict training for the occasion.