VARIOUS SPORTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 229, 28 September 1931, Page 8

VARIOUS SPORTS

INTERESTING ITEMS SWIMMING, CRICKET, TENNIS. At its annual meeting recently the English Rugby League accepted an invitation for a representative team to tour New Zealand in 1932. Whether Jack Sharkey fights for the world’s heavy-weight championship again or not, ho has over £200,000 saved up from his past ring earnings. Jack Dempsey fought Luis Firpo but once, that being in 1923, when Dempsey knocked his opponent out in the second round. F. J. M. Milton won the English onemile swimming championship at Highgate Pond, London, on August 1, in 25min. 28 3-ssec. A. Taylor was second in 25min. 32 4-ssec., and A. G. Watts third in 26min. 32 l-ssec. The holder, J. G. Hatfield, did not compete. An English cricket professional had t>3 great misfortune to lose his left hand in an accident a year or so ago, but quite undaunted by his handicap he designed a ball and socket connection between the bat and his arm, and so successful is his invention that in a recent match he was able to hit a sixer. ***»♦* The team of English swimmers which met Germany on July 18 in an 800 metres relay race and a water polo match, lost both events. The relay race of four men a-side, each of whom had to swim 200 metres, was won in 9min. 49 2-ssec. by Germany, which was also victorious in the water polo match by 9 goals to 2. A team of twelve American athletes had a successful opening to their tour of South Africa last month. Each man competed in one event and eleven of them had victories. Emmet Tappino, the star sprinter, defeated W. B. Legg, the South African champion, by 2jyds., in 9 4-ssec., on a track that rose fully two feet. In the Warwickshire first innings against Worcestershire in a recent county cricket match the score book showed: Rev. J. H. Parsons, absent, 0. There is an amusing explanation to this. When Parsons arrived on the ground he discovered that he had left his spectacles at home. He returned to obtain them, and when he got back he found his side all out. After a successful tour in Australia, Herman Bundren, an American middleweight boxer, is returning to San Francisco by the Sierra, which touched at Auckland recently. Bundren lost on three occasions to Ambrose Palmer, Australian middle-weight champion, but he had several wins, including one against J. O’Malley, heavy-weight champion. The Newport Rugby Club claims that J. Morley, the threequarter back, whom it has elected to lead the team next season, is not only the youngest captain it has ever had, but is probably the youngest in the four countries. Morley is 21 years of age. The trip to Australia and New Zealand with the British tourists makes him one of the most widely-experienced members of his team. A British athletic team easily defeated a French team at Paris recently. Chief interest centred in the 1500 metres, in which R. H. Thomas opposed Jules Ladoumegue. Other Englishmen in the race set a fast pace at the start, in an endeavour to tire the Frenchmen, but when Thomas went to the lead with 300 yards to go, Ladoumegue drew up and then outpaced him, to win brilliantly by four yards, amid great excitement. The Paavo Nurmi is still a live force on the track was again demonstrated at Ilbrox Park, Glasgow, when he won a four-miles handicap from scratch, conceding starts up to 400 yards, in 19min. 20 2-ssec. A week earlier, at Helsingsfors, he had covered two miles in Bmin. 59 3-ssec. Nurmi holds the record for four miles in ,19min. 15 3- established in Finland. Alfred Shrubb comes next with 19min. 23 2-ssec.,. figures set up at Glasgow. • • • • • Miss Helene Madison, the famous young American swimmer, had made the following records up to July 19:— 100yds., 60 6-10 sec.; 150yds., Imin. 40 4- 200yds., 2min. 19 4-ssec.; 200 metres, 2min. 34 6-10 sec.; 220yds., 2min. 35sec.; 300yds., 3min. 36sec.; 300 metres, 3min. 59 5-10 sec.; 400 metres, smin. 39 4-10 sec.; 440yds., smin. 39 4-lOsec.; 500yds., 6min. 16 4-10 see.; 550 yds., 7min. 22 3-ssec.; 1000yds., 13min. 23 8-10 sec.; 500 metres, 7min. 12sec.; 880yds., llmin. 41 2-10 sec.; one mile, 24min. 34 6-10 see. Mention was made by the president of the Franklin Lawn Tennis Association, Mr. M. 8. Campbell, at tho opening of the season of the Tuakau (Auckland) Club’s courts, that tho association intended to inaugurate a system of school contests to find the best boy and girl player in the district of each club in the association. A championship tournament would then be held for these players, and trophies awarded to the winners. It was hoped in this way to foster tennis among the young folk in the association’s area. Members paying their first visit this season to tho United Lawn Tennis Club’s courts will be agreeably surprised at the numerous alterations and improvements that have been effected for their comfort. During the winter months the pavilion has been considerably enlarged. The secretary and his very energetic committee arranged to have tho shelters reconstructed and generally-improved, a volley hoard erected and many other minor facilities carried out. The completion of the work has wrought a wonderful difference, and by the time opening day arrives members will have cause to commend their committee. A telephone will be installed within the next few weeks. George Gunn surely deserves some sort of medal, says an English critic. After almost retiring from the Notts team he has been busy showing that, at the age of 52, his skill as a batsman is not yet rusting. Recently he demonstrated also that his physical fitness might challenge that of many a young man, for against Warwickshire he batted for over seven hours for 183 runs. As only 52 of those runs were obtained by boundary hits, it is clear that he had a good deal of running to do. Tn the same innings of Notts, Gunn’s son, G. V. Gunn, scored 100, not out. We cannot recall another case 1

of father and son scoring a hundred'in the same innings. The Morning Post, in a leading article on August 7, had the following to say about the New Zealand cricketers: —A tribute of praise, a bouquet without any brickbat in it, is unquestionably due to our guests from the Britain of the South Seas. Although its population does not much exceed a million, this gallant little Dominion has long been supreme in Rugby football, which is rapidly becoming a planetary pastime, and its cricketers are now entitled to challenge England, Australia, or South Africa to a series of test matches. What a striking proof that it is quality rather than quantity which counts in the many-sided science and art of modern athletics! Mr. T. C. Lowry’s band of brothers have proved themselves perfect sportsmen, both on and off the cricket field, and their pluck is equal to their sportsmanship, as was shown by the way they made a drawn battle of the first test at Lord’s. . . . They have given a demonstration urbi et orbi, to London and the Empire, that a test match can still bo a game of cricket and not a kind of timeless trench warfare, in which batsmen dig themselves in and make safety-first the chief axiom of “cricket’s manly toil.”