ITEMS OF INTEREST

Southland Times, Issue 20615, 13 October 1928, Page 18 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST

“Some-more” time! Radford’s Calvary—Leckie’s right cross! Reflection —What a shave for Barber’! There would be some tall (?) yarns after Monday’s fight. And Radford wouldn’t be alone in taking the count. Humpty Dumpty” I —The Southland team, after Otago. The Sanders Cup races will be contested at Akaroa this season. ♦ • ♦ ♦ Pirates F. C. will probably field two senior teams in next year's Galbraith Shield Competition. Waikiwi are keen to jump up one and make six, so the contest should be interesting. * * ♦ * "Oh! Listen to the band.” “She is the Relle of New York” and “To-day is Monday” will probably be sung if Blues win! A. W. Holden, Edendale's gain, is not only a top-notch half-back, he is also a crack cricketer. "And When We are Married”—Heeney, Tunney and Leckie must have been listen-ing-in to Fifi and Harry! After a lapse of 15 years Dunedin is conducting a New Zealand championship golf tournament. It opened on the Balmacewan links yesterday. An Irish football club has been suspended for five years, which must be a record in suspensions. Despite recent defeats, it is still said that Miss Betty Nuthall will be a world's champion. Her new overhand service to a certain extent restricts her form. * ♦ ♦ * Stewart Sheftal a 17-year-old American who lives in Paris won the British boys’ open golf champinnship. In the final he beat Archibald Dobbie, of Inverness, six up and five to play. The New York State Athletic Commission has suspended Johnny Risko indefinitely because of his failure to appear before the com miss on for questioning in connection with his disqualification for fouling Roberto Roberti the Italian heavy-weight. Carpio, the world’s fastest greyhound caused a sensation when he covered the 525 yards hurdles in 31.32 seconds at the White Qty, having previously set up a record which was broken by Douro, whose performance of 31.35 seconds was considered marvellous. Carpio, an Irish dog, valued at £2.000. is owned by Mrs P. Carson. The "Wanganui Union crew, holders of the New Zealand championship fours, left for Sydney yesterday, en route to Melbourne to compete at Henley-on-Yarra, the big regatta to be held by the Melbourne Rowing Club on October 27. Twentyfive thousand at League final.— South Sydney has won the premiership of the New South Wales Rugby League for the fourth year in succession. In the final it beat Eastern Suburbs by 26 points to five, before a crowd of 24,966, the gatereceipts being £1279 5/6. “If ever an argument existed against the participation of girls in athletics it was painfully presented by the six distressed figures that staggered past the post in the women’s 800 metres race, and collapsed prostrate on the grass,” writes a Christchurch athletic enthusiast, who saw the Games? In this race Fraulein L. Radke, of Germany, put up a world record of 2min 10 4-ssec. Charles Paddock, the famous American sprinter, the first to be termed “the fastest human,” has run his last Olympic race, and possibly his last for all time. He paid a high tribute to Percy Williams, the nine-teen-year-old Canadian, who won both the 100 metres and the 200 metres Olympic races. "That boy doesn’t run—he flies. He’s a thoroughbred and a great competitor.” Sportsmanship!—“lf you can’t beat them, buy them out.” seems to be the remedy adopted to heal the sore resulting from the blow which the athletic pride of the United States suffered in the track events at the Olympic Games, comments an exchange. All the Canadians who won events at the Games have been offered excellent positions in the United States, according to a special message from Toronto to the Sydney Sun. Several have succumbed already to the temptation of high salaries. Marquette University, Michigan, announces that four Canadian Olympic men have joined its track team. Two friendly golfing enemies were having a real duel. It was mostly level pegging all the way round, and they completed the seventeenth all square. Jones, who was desperately keen to win, hit a high shot to the last hole, and the ball was carried by the breeze into impossible country, costing him the match. Walking clubwards the unfortunate one said, “I’m so darned disappointed, I’ve a jolly good mind to go home and shoot myself.” "All right,” said his friend cheerfully, “don’t forget to allow for the wind.” ♦ * * * An astonishing record has been set up by the “push bike” cyclists in the test fleet at Fort Dunlop, Birmingham, in England. During the last twelve months for five days a week, they actually pedalled between 90 and 95 miles a day in all weathers, each driver averaging 19,213 miles throughout the year. The total mileage covered by the entire fleet of sixteen cars, three motor lorries, five motor cycles, and two "push bikes” was 835,048. The longest runs done by car in one day were the 425 miles from Dieppe to Bordeaux, and the 415 miles from Glasgow to Birmingham, and London, while a motor lorry put up the excellent performance of 323 miles from Birmingham to Weymouth and back. Speedball, a combination of football and basketball, and a game which, athletic authorities predict, may in the near future become the most popular sport in American schools and colleges, is being intensively taught at the Columbia University in New York City (says an American paper). Men and women, physical education directors, and coaches from all over the country are attending daily classes of instruction. Speedball is played with eleven men or women on a side. To start it a regulation soccer ball is kicked off. The ball cannot be picked from the ground with the hands, but can only be lifted with the feet. Once caught in the hands, the basketball feature comes in, for it can be passed from player to player, the skill and rapidity with which they do this carrying the ball rapidly down the field. There is no “off-side” rule as in football, nor is there a line-up.

In winning the 220yds swimming championship of England, a few weeks, J. Whiteside (South Manchester! put up new time for the race, 2min 27 l-ssecs. The previous best was credited to Australian F. C. Lane, who in 1902 recorded 2min 28 3-ssecs. Whiteside’s time is also a new British native record for the distance. ♦ ♦ * * It was only after a play-off with his father that Len Nettleford, amateur golf champion of Australia, won the championship of Southern Tasmania recently. For two rounds they tied with aggregate scores of 150. Len Nettleford returning 75 and 75, and his father 76 and 74. When they played off over six holes, the son won by one stroke. * ♦ * * Swimming affairs are stirring in Dunedin already, though the prospects in the women’s division (in which the province was very strong last season! are uncertain. It is not known yet what Mias K. Miller’s intentions are, nor Miss M. Jepson’s, though the latter has been in the water and is likely to be an active participant on behalf of Otago. The province should be strong again in diving, as Roy Calder (three times New Zealand champion) intends to defend his title, and M. Walker (runner-up to Calder) has already been on the board. Miss Doris Foote is also expected to do big j things. The male swimmers are again only of mediocre quality.—Exchange. Opperman, the champion cyclist, is a tremendous trainer. He is always at it, with few brief spells. He rides over the tracks he has to cover, diets, does gymnastics and massages. Opperman’s diet is mostly fruit and vegetables, with little meat. He goes on the principle that the human body is an engine which must have the right kind of fuel. Yet, curiously enough, other vigorous trainers would scoff at Opperman’s diet and pump for plenty of red steak and eggs. A well-known German woman tennis played, Frau von Reynicek, was suspended for six weeks recently, by the German Lawn Tennis Association, for slapping Frau Aussen’s face. It seems that Frau Aussen had asserted that Frau von Reznicek had succeeded in beating Fraulein C. Aussen (who was the German champion last year) only after hypnotizing her, Frau Aussen’s name has been removed from the membership lists of two clubs. Fraulein Aussen, it is said, has nothing to do with her mother’s outbursts, beyond being the innocent cause. An American medical journal thus describes golf:—"Golf is a form of work, made expensive enough for a man to enjoy it. Its physical and mental exertion is made attractive by the fact that you must dress for it in an expensive club-house. Golf is what letter-carrying, ditch-digging, and carpet-beating would be, if these three tasks had to be performed on the same afternoon in short pants and coloured socks by gentlemen who require a different implement for every mood. It is probably the only game a man can play for a quarter of a century and then discover it was too deep for him in the first place.” * ♦ * ♦ Tennis players have to train in order to be able to last out a gruelling five-set match. Norman Brookes and Anthony Wilding, at the time when they were keeping the Davis Cup securely in Australia, had a regular programme before matches. They ran a little, played tennis most of the day. and used a light diet which, curiously enough, included a little ale. Wilding, in his book, said that Brookes was a very hard man to train. Tony himself always went on the court in the pink of condition. Henri Cochet, a world tennis champion, trains elaborately. He lives quietly, sleeps eight or nine hours, has a mixed diet of meat and fruit, of which he eats sparingly, does not smoke, but drinks tea and coffee, and has a little wine with his dinner at night. On the court he is tireless. ♦ * * * One of the surprises of the first round of the contest for the boys’ .amateur golf championship of England, on the Formby links, near Southport, a few weeks ago, was the defeat of a New Zealander, Peter Pharazyn, the 17-year-old brother of a former Cambridge University captain. Pharazyn was at Eton last summer, and learned golf at Sunningdale. He had been at his New Zealand home for 10 months, and he sent his entry for the championship from midAtlantic, by radio. He was beaten at the nineteenth hole by P. W. L. Risdon, the youngest competitor in the field. Risdon passed his thirteenth birthday only three months ago, and he stands but 4ft 6in. [ He has amazing assurance, and it was this I that enabled him to win after he was three ♦ • * ♦ 1 For the sixth time—though not in suc- ' cessive years—J. G. Hatfield, Middlebrough [ veteran, has won the long-distance swimming championship of England. The race was held a few weeks ago, in the Thames, from Kew to Putney, a distance of five I miles 60 yards. Hatfield’s time, Ihr 4min i 44sec., was the best he has recorded yet in ' the race. He won this event, first in i 1913. E. W. Pascoe, of Plaistow, who won I last year, w’as second to Hatfield this time, | and E. H. Temme, the Channel swimmer, was third. It is remarked that the winning lof the race by such a veteran as Hatfield j does not speak highly for British longI distance swimmers, but there was consolI ation in the fact that several youngsters were among the 19 competitors who finished within standard time. If Lloyd Hahn doesn’t change his mind the track will see the last of him at the conclusion of the current season. He stated that after the Olympics he would retire and devote his attention to farming. “A coaching post doesn’t interest him” (says a New York paper). “He believes he could hang on in major track competition another four years, perhaps make another Olympic team, his third, but the Nebraska farms are calling and the lure of scorching the boards, winning races and hanging up world’s records is not what it used to be with Hahn. The thrill has paled somewhat for the Nebraskan after winning thirty-one consecutive races and cornering most of the middle distance championships. A farm or two up near Falls City, Nebraska, part of his mother's legacy, will claim h»s attention after he hangs up his track spikes. ♦ * ♦ * When we thing of fighting men, we think of Americans or Britons, seldom boxers of Continental origin, says an English writer. Yet great strides have been made on the Continent in the fighting line, and in America boxers of Continental descent out number others at and near the top of Ihe tree. Of these, boxers of Italian descent hold the lead easily. They hold four out of eight standard world’s championships, and are claiming the fifth. The Mussoiinis of Maul are Samuel Lazzaro, who lights under the name of Joe Dundee, welterweight champion; Angelo Beraci, whose ring name is Bushy Graham, bantam champion; Tony Canzomeri, featherweight title holder; Sammy Mandell, lightweight king; and Frankie Genaro, who is the National Boxing Association’s choice as fly weight champion. Los Angeles claims Newsboy Brown for this title, while the New York State Commission name Corporal Izzy Schwarz.