THE PLAYGROUND.

Southland Times, Issue 19500, 14 March 1925, Page 14

THE PLAYGROUND.

Summer sports fading. Football already in air. Amateur athletics struggling. Bowling championship undecided. Deer stalkers burnishing their sights. Snipe shooters have had splendid sport. The All Black rowing eight is going well. Quail are numerous in Central Otago this year.

Rivers should be in excellent condition for the week-end.

A party of Indian sportsmen are stalking deer in the Blue Mountains.

Country footbal clubs are looking forward to a good run this season, and all members are showing keenness.

Negotiations are afoot for the visit of a champion overseas swimmer to New Zealand.

A party of three at Taupo recently caught 149 rainbow trout averaging 91b, all on the

First Cricket Test between New Zealand and Victoria commences at Christchurch next Friday, March 20. It is to be regretted that the amateur runners did not turn out in force for the meeting on Wednesday. Good fields are the first essential of success.

“One wicket, nine runs” —with those figures H. Strudwick, the famous wicketkeeper of the English team, tops the bowling averages.

Jack Kearns, guide, philosopher and friend to Jack Dempsey in his batchelor days, is reported to be taking over as manager to Mickey Walker, world’s welterweight champion. Writing to Mr L. Bell, Dave Turnbull, ex Waihopai, School reps, and 1.C.C., states that he is now in Napier and in a recent match carried his bat for 30 in each innings.

If Nepia were to stand for a Maori electorate st the forthcoming elections he would simply walk in, as he is at present the idol of his race. His performances with the AH Blacks have placed his mana very high. The wonderful Nurmi goes on his recordbreaking way. His latest feat is to estabfish new figures for the mile. He ran the distance in 4.12 l-3secs, which time is one second better than the previous world’s record. The venue of this accomplishment was Buffalo, United States. The telephone bell tinkled and a Wanganui reporter taking up the receiver heard a sweet voice inquiring how the test match was progressing. “Australia is leading by over 400 runs,” quoth the scribe. “Thank you. I’m so glad,” came the answer. Then followed the astonishing query: “I suppose they play the All Blacks in the final test.” Football is ousting baseball in the United States as the national pastime. While it is impossible to arrive at the exact figures for either game for the whole season, it has been calculated that the famous Yale team during the two-month season attracted in the vicinity of 500,000 people, and the Pennsylvanians had something like 365,000 at their games. A suggestion has been in Sydney that boxers should wear skull caps in the ring and so avoid the unfortunate results which have occurred when one of their beads came into forcible contact with the “carpet.” This seems to be the first step towards equipping the padded glove gladiators with medieval armour when they are in the arena.

When the Australian Board of Control met recently it was to have decided the question whether Ponsford’s score of 429 for Victoria against Tasmania was made in a first-class match. This question was referred to it by the M.C.C. for A. C. MacLaren, whose score of 424 for ILancashire against Somerset had stood since 1895, raised an objection to Ponsford’s performance being recognised.

“The Prince of Wales can hold his own with any horseman. He has been through the mill now, and he is always in the forefront in rough country, in which everybody finds his level,” said the Master of the Quora Hunt, speaking at a Leicestershire farmers’ and hunters’ banquet The Prince was given a rousing reception. He apologised for sometimes smashing farmers’ fences. Personally, he found hunting as hard for the riders’ heads and bodies as for the farmers.

The Hawaiian swimming champion, Sam Kahanamoku, is just a big boy—full of life and fun. He is 20 years of age, and enjoys every moment he is awake. Sam has good principles, too, and none of the airs and graces which have surrounded the majority of the swimmers who have come from the United States to Australia. That was evidenced when he swam in the 440yds championship of N.S.W. He informed his friends before the start that he knew he had no chance, as he had seldom been over the distance, even in practice, let alone in a race. All the same he was not going to pick and choose races which there was little doubt about him winning. Kahanamoku, is highly intelligent. He has studied engineering, but after leaving Australia he intends entering Stanford University to study medicine, and upon securing his degree he will practice in Honolulu. “Solar Plexus” of die Sydney Referee publishes the record of the famous Billy Murphy in the issue of February 25, but omits two of his most notable battles, which took place in Dunedin. One was when Murphy lost on a foul to Tommy Williams, now a well-known trainer in Sydney. On that occasion the purse and gate were promptly removed to safety after the decision, and Murphy marathoned around the town in his ring gear for half the night looking for the stake-holder, who is still a wellknown figure in the village. Tie other bout was with a man named Smith, whom Murphy undertook to “cut” in six rounds. He did so, but his opponent had Murphy in deep trouble and came within an ace of reversing the contract. In those days Murphy poked with his left until he got his battering ram right a chance and then he did finish. The redoubtable “Billy” was, in those days, the proud possessor of a silvermounted stick, and had a habit of holding it low so that the silver knob could not be overlooked as he “took the air” on the sidewalks of Dunedin. FAMOUS SOUTHLANDEB RETURNS. A MEMORABLE ATHLETIC CAREER. (By “On-Side Mac.”) For some days past Invercargill has been entertaining a visitor whom only those of another generation would recognise as one of the meet brilliant footballers Southland ever produced, and one of the greatest all-round athletes of his generation. The Sydney Referee classed him with “Snowy” Baker for all round qualifications in the field of sport in the Island Continent, and the verdict of Rugby history is that he and W. J. Stead, vice-captain of the 1905 All Blacks, have strong claims to be regarded as the greatest five-eighth combination of all time. Those who remember Rugby football in Southland in the ’nineties will

Sports and Pastimes.

new begin to have an inkling of the identity of the visitor, who is none less than Peter Ward, ex-champion footballer, boxer, runner, catch-as-can wrestler and roughrider, who is visiting relations in Invercargill and looking up old friends of days gone by. Ward’s athletic history commences in Australia as an uncommonly promising boxer, but it was in Invercargill that he laid the foundation of his brilliant career as a Rugby football player. Associated with the old Britannia F.C., he speedily climbed the ladder of fame in the oval ball game, and the Wellington team of 1897 was greatly impressed with “a young player named Ward” in the Southland team. The subject of this notice was not fated to attain All Black honours —in 1899 in company with C. Purdie of this town, he visited Sydney, and although his old club-mate returned shortly after and subsequently wore the fern leaf badge of Maoriland, Peter Ward took up residence in the New South Wales capital, and became a great player in the light blue livery of the oldest State in the Commonwealth. Against Rev. Matthew Mullineux’s British team of 1899, Ward made a great name for himself as one of the halves (so-called) of the New South Wales and Australian International Fifteens, and was universally conceded to be one of the most brilliant inside backs of his time.

Peter Ward served as a scout right through the South African War, and there made the acquaintance of the brick-hard football grounds of the veldt, which have produced a class of Rugby players who are the All Blacks’ mest serious challengers to world supremacy. In the late World War, Ward again went away in the Australian Forces, and was wounded at Gallipoli and invalided back to Australia. A second time he returned to the war-front, and in the closing stages of the war, he was badly wounded in France. Lately, he has been on the stage in Sydney, and he arrived in Invercargill via Wellington last week. He will find that much water has flowed under the bridge since his day—in the meantime the old home province has produced worthy successors to one of its greatest players in men of the class of the late Jim McNeece, “Scotty” Baird, “Son” White, and Ray Bell—but none greater than Peter Ward, who is most heartily welcome to our football midst after many years absence.