HEENEY HOME.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 150, 10 September 1928, Page 2

HEENEY HOME.

ACCOMPANIED BY HIS WIFE. AN ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME. WILL TRY AGAIN. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, This day. Tom Heeney’g arrival by the Aorangi was marked by extraordinary enthusiasm. He received the first cheers of welcome from crowded launches as the mail steamer entered port, and as she berthed at Prince’s wharf there was burst on burst of cheering. When the boxer and his wife appeared at the deck rail as they came down the gangway a battery’ of cameras exploded. In a waiting taxi Heeney met his mother and then drove to the City Hotel, where he met his father, crowds following and all along the streets roaring a welcome. Later Heeney, speaking from the broadcast station, saluted New Zealand and Gisborne. He said he had not brought back the world’s title, hut the people could rest assured he would seek it again. Interviewed, Heeney said he wished to take nothing from Tunney’s victory, hut the breaking of his thumb a few days before the bout had troubled him. He would like to meet Tunney again if Tunnev wag willing. About January he will meet one of the winners of the elimination bouts, for which there are from eight to ten entrants. Probably he would meet one of the last left in—Sharkey, Lough ran, Risko, or Paulino. To-day Heeney was the guest of the Auckland Boxing Association. Mis Heeney, who fully shared in the welcome accorded her husband, is a young and pretty American, animated and with a distinct charm of manner. She is an orphan and Ame-rican-born.

Regarding Heeney’g desire to continue to seek the championship, she said it was his wish, after years of endeavor, and she just wished him success.

Heeney received £21,000 from the fight with Tunney, but after the payment of expenses had only £II,OOO left. He made much more than that in America, and his surplus money is being invested for him by a banker friend in the United States.