NOTED SPORTSMEN ARE GIVEN PLACE IN TUSSAUD’S.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 30 (Supplement)

NOTED SPORTSMEN ARE GIVEN PLACE IN TUSSAUD’S.

BUT RUGBY PLAYERS NOT YET INCLUDED

The sporting public may not appreciate the fact, but they owe very much to the famous house of Tussaud, which since it was first instituted in England seme ninety yearS ago, has enabled thousands, through its ceroplastic art, to visualise, modelled in wax, many of the most famous athletes of all time.

The Sport of Kings is well represented with Lord Derby as an owner and Fred Archer and Steve Donoghue, the two premier jockeys in the world, who, between them, have won some dozen Derbys. To many the name of Archer is merely a legend, and it is forgotten that during his lifetime he rode in over 8000 races, in the course of which he won five Derbys and six St Legers, unfortunately to terminate a wonderful career by his own hand. As representing boxing there are Jack Dempsey, Georges Carpentier, Joe Beckett and Jimmy Wilde, two of them world’s champions, but all of whom, although still alive, have retired from the ring. The two men selected as symbolic of the sport of cricket are W. G. Grace and Jack Hobbs, the master batsmen of their particular generations, while golf gives us Harry Vardon, the winner of the British championship on six occasions, and Abe Mitchell, a happy selection from past and present. The disciples of speed and endurance are not forgotten. There are Major Sir Henry Segrave, Colonel Charles Lindbergh, Claude Graham White. Captain Sir John Alcock, Sir Arthur Brown and Louis Bleriot.

Here we have in Segrave the man who has driven a motor-car at a greater pace than any other human being has accomplished; Lindbergh, the first individual to cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane; Alcock and Brown, the two Englishmen who accomplished the same feat eight years before it was accomplished by anyone else; and Bleriot, who, twenty years ago, made history by flying the Channel (writes a “Sporting Life” correspondent). We also see Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel, and who was afterwards drowned in attempting to cross the rapids at Niagara; and Thomas Burgess, who, at his sixteenth attempt, was the first to emulate the feat of Webb, and is now the popular trainer of other aspirants to similar fame.

Mile. Suzanne Lenglen and “Big Bill" Tilden, the two greatest lawn tennis players of their sex the world has ever produced, complete an interesting collection of athletes that will appeal to everyone. But there are others who should and may possibly be included in course of time.

There is no Rugby Union footballer on view. Who should be included ? There are many great names that at once come to the memory, and I suggest that W. W. Wakefield, the old English captain, would be a worthy and typical representative of a real man's game, and as com ing from the othe; home unions we might be given E. Gwyn Nicholls or Arthur Gould, of Wales; W. E. Crawford or George Stephenson, of Ireland; and J. M. Bannerman, of Scotland; with George Nepia and Douglas Morkel representing New Zealand and South Africa respectively, and Jaurreguy from France. The other code of football should not, too, be forgotten. Here again there is another wide choice. Think, for instance of G. O. Smith, Bob Crompton, W. Wedlock, Steve Bloomer, Johnny Goodall, Arthur Grimsdell, and Vivian Woodward.

And if two players only for all time were only so honoured, I would choose “G. 0.” and Grimsdell, my ideal amateur and professional players. The cricket section could be strengthened by the inclusion of Gilbert Jessop. Wilfred Rhodes, Walter Hammond, Maurice Tate, and “Tich” Freeman; while Gene Tunney could be added to that of boxing, Henri Cochet to lawn tennis, Gordon Richards among . the jockeys, and so on.