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Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 27 (Supplement)

After many attempts to entice Major Goodsell, once an Australian but now an American citizen, to London for a match on the Thames, Bert Barry, the world’s champion sculler, has contracted to meet Alf Burns, the New South Wales Northern Rivers champion, in London in June next. Bums is a hefty sculler, but on all the form he has shown to date he should be no great trouble to the Englishman, who has all his famous uncle’s skill with a bit more weight and muscle behind it. In the meantime, money for Burns’s expenses is being asked for. It is some time since an Australian figured in an event which for many years was an Australian monopoly. Burns should be given a chance to prove himself.

Some inspired ass has come forward with a suggestion that inter-State hard court tennis match on the lines of the Sheffield Shield cricket competition should be instituted, says an Australian writer. It is to be hoped that the appeal will fall on deaf ears. As matters are at present it takes some of our leading amateurs all their time to scoot about the country playing tennis, with the result that earning a living is quite Out of the question. That does not matter much, since they are obviously either persons with considerable private means or, like those interesting vegetables known as epiphvtes, they can live entirely on air. There seems no possibility of these people cramming more tennis into their span on earth.