OTHER SPORTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143771, 20 April 1912, Page 8

OTHER SPORTS.

(By “Recreation.”)

The annual meeting of the New Plymouth Hookey Club was to hare been held on Thursday, but only the secretary, two now members and two reporters wore present. The ypung men of to-day do not seem to take as much interest in this game,' as was manifested a few years ago. In all other sports, too, this interest is lacking. The trouble is to get young men to the hockey-field. Once they commence handling tire stick they are sure to take to the game. A practice is to be hold on the Racecourse ground on Thursday afternoon when the secretary will be pleased to receive all old and intending players. M. E. Champion New Zealand’s champion swimmer, will leave by the Athenic, from 'Wellington, en route for the fifth Olympiad, at Stockholm." He left Auckland on Tuesday evening, by the .Main Trunk express. The manner in which Champion’s trip to Stockholm has been assured is different from that originally proposed. The Waitemata Swimming Club raised about £2O from the carnival held in the Calliope Dock on Good Friday, and the Post and Telegraph Swimming Club donated £5. As centres made no response to the appeal for funds, the secretary to the AVnitemata Club telegraph to the Council of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association, at Christchurch, undertaking: for the club the responsibility for. raising the necessary money—some £l5O in all —if the council would approve of the club bringing over n team of prominent Australian swimmers in December, to recoup the club A special meeting of the council was hold on Thursday evening, and the proposal was approved, .subject to the amateur restrictions. When a reply to this effect' was received. the committee of the Waite*mata Club met, and the 12 members of it. immediately guaranteed the balance —£'l2.s—required, so that the club’s own funds will not he touched. Champion has won 22 New Zealand championships. He is not recognised as a great sprinter, as compared with the shorter distances. But he is in the first flight of swiTnmers from 220yds onwards. He has been credited with 61Jsec for 100yds, in the Albert street Baths, but through a technicality this time has not been recognised hv the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association. His best time for 100yds, apart from that referred to, is 63Jscc, isec outside the New Zealand record. Champion holds the New Zealand records from 220, yds to a mile, they being: 220yds, 2min 37sec; 440yds. omin 48sec; 880yds, 12min 17sec; mile, 24 min 30j|scc. The Olympic record for 400 metres is smin 36jsec, established by H. Taylor, of Great Britain, in 1908. That for 1500 metres is 22min 4S?sec, also put up by Taylor at the fourth Olympiad.

A. ,R. H. (“Boiler”) Francis has fixed up with a Lancashire club for the next English season. , Says the •‘Athletic News”:—“Had the negotiations matured satisfactorily, Francis would probably have played with his new club next Saturday. A cable was sent to Auckland for the transfer, but the reply of the New South Wales League was that £2OO must be paid before Francis obtained his. release. And as the New Zealander was to receive a signing-on fee of £250, with a playing fee of £BO for the season, to say nothing of a prospective bonus the aggregate amount was so large that Francis had perforce to return to Auckland and endeavour to secure his own transfer. He contemplates a stay of Two seasons with the Lancashire club. Savoury, the other New Zealand forward. will also, 1 think, be lost to Auckland football. He intends to join 1 1 iv Glebe Chin for the coining season. .As yet there a ■- no transfer agreements lie: vvemi .Ansirnh’a and New Zealand. so that Savoury is a free agent.”