HUNGARIANS AS ATHLETES

Southland Times, Issue 23306, 16 September 1937, Page 4

HUNGARIANS AS ATHLETES

CLAIM TO FOREMOST PLACE IN WORLD

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL THE NATIONAL GAME

Playing their favourite game and seeing the world at the same time is how M. Istvan Kelen and M. Miklos Szabados, the world-famous table tennis players, who are in Invercargill, described their tour of Australia, New Zealand and other countries they have visited and hope to visit before they return to their homes in Hungary. Both have achieved world-wide fame by their skill at table tennis, and have been holders of world championships as well as many championships of Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia and England. M. Kelen and M. Szabados left Budapest some months ago, and after playing in Europe they visited Australia, where their tour was most successful. At Melbourne they gave exhibitions before a crowd of 5000 people. A visit to Japan was included in the original itinerary, but the war with China caused the visit to be abandoned. Both, however, hope to visit Japan later. From New Zealand they will return to Australia and then go to London, through the United States of America. M. Szabados is employed by a wellknown firm of sports dealers in London. He is a first-class lawn tennis player and once met F. J. Perry in the final of one of the world’s biggest tournaments at Budapest. M. Kelen is a young journalist attached to the staff of Hungary’s greatest newspaper Pesti Napo, a daily publication with a circulation of 400,000. On this tour Kelen is writing weekly articles for a syndicate which distributes his work to 20 newspapers in different parts of the World. His range of interests is wide, for in addition to his weekly magazine articles he writes on scientific subjects, and has had published a text book on table tennis, which has been translated into English, and a novel which won him an award in Budapest. That Hungary was the foremost sporting nation in the world was the claim made by M. Kelen in an interview with The Southland Times yesterday. Association football was Hungary’s national game, but there was a number of other sports in which it excelled. “We have been unbeaten at ,*.ble tennis, water polo and fencing,” M. Kelen declared,” and we hold over 500 cham-pion-ships in sport. At the last Olympic Games in Berlin Hungary was third among the nations.” - ORGANIZED GAMES

M. Kelen said he was proud of the position Hungary held, particularly as it had a population of little more than 7,000,000. The success of its people could be put down to organized games which formed part of the curriculum of the schools. All the schools conducted their own sports associations and by the time the children reached schoolleaving age they were fitted to play their parts in the higher sports competitions. They did not play Rugby football in Hungary, M. Kelen said, but he knew of the enthusiasm of New Zealand and other English countries for the game. He was surprised to learn, however, that the degree of enthusiasm in New Zealand was so great that thousands of people travelled hundreds of miles to see football matches.

Asked about the style and standard of table tennis played by Australians and New Zealanders, M, Kelen said he thought that from what he had seen of the players the New Zealanders had the better style but the Australians were the better players. “But we have seen only a few New Zealand players. Perhaps in other parts of New Zealand we might find them equally as strong as the Australians,” he added. The Hungarians played in Invercargill last evening. Today they will travel by the express to Christchurch, where they play tomorrow evening. They are on a three weeks’ tour of New Zealand. Mr A. S. Meachen, a member of the Wellington Table Tennis Association, is accompanying them on the South Island part of the tour.