FREE LANCE AT ALL THINGS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 254, 27 October 1939, Page 11

FREE LANCE AT ALL THINGS

AN AUSTRALIAN ATHLETE AMBITIOUS PLANS IN NEW ZEALAND STOPPED BY WAR

Sydney C. ("Norman”) Dyer is a c young Australian athlete who had i i ambitious plans as regards sports in t Auckland; plans which must now be j c discarded, or at least postponed, like < so many private hopes which Hitler’s I i madness has affected, says the N.Z. 1 z Observer. He arrived from Welling- ' 1 ton during the last week in August, 11 and set about opening a swimming ' £ and diving school, but with the out- I break of war he was in the forefront I i of those offering their services, and | £ he succeeded in enlisting on the day | 1 after the declaration. He is now aI £ Lewis Gun instructor, having received ■ i his early military training in Aus- j i tralia and in the permanent forces c while at Trentham, before he ever ; j saw Auckland. ' I Dyer’s age is now 23, and he is 1 probably one of the most versatile < ] athletes in New Zealand. His career , ; has been a very varied one. In his I t own words, he has "done anything I ] from navvying to radio announcing.” i i As’ a lad in Australia he met many i ’ sportsmen whose names are familiar I ’ in the headlines. Among them were | j J. O. Anderson, the ex-Davis Cup ten- | nis player; Fred Lanes, the holder of ■ three world’s championship swimming : : records and classed as one of the most i ' versatile performers ever produced;!. Alan Kippax, the cricketer; and I Aubrey Hodgson, the Australian ' Rugby footballer. "They are the men who put me on g I lie road to sport as a career,” say:- I Dyer. "They gave me my foundation; | helped me to develop along the right j lines. They’re men who knew what j ihey were talking about in physical’ l fitness. I learnt my boxing from Jack ■ Dunleavy, and he was an Aussie who ■ reached world class as a middle- I weight.” Anyone mathematically minded will | < be interested to hear just what young I: Dyer means by that word "develop- i < ment.” His own measurements denote ’ . it and reflect an enviably proportioned ! < physique. Here they are: Chest 43in., 1 ; height sft. 11-iin., normal weight 12st. ; ! 21b. (stripping to list. 4’.b. for the • < ring). He takes a 17i collar, and has i ; the* remarkable forarm development of i 14A inches. Take a piece of string ; and try that out. If you go more than 12 inches you’re not doing badly, s Proficient In Sport. There is hardly a branch of sport at i which Dyer has not tried his hand at ; i some time or other. At most of them ! he has done better t han average, | : excelling al many, as his scrap-book i proves. He was 18 when he first went ;, to London, in 1934, as a member of j the Australian team for the Empire j Games. He was then specialising in I. swimming and Giving, but the coveted | Empire titles eluded nim. He came to | New Zealand last year at the personal invitation of Mr. "Ted” Isaacs, wellknown Dunedin newspaper-man, whom no met at the Empire Games at Syd- I The objects of the invitation at that I time was two-fold. First, to give Dyer I residential status in New Zealand. ; This would have made him eligible to I represent the Dominion at the next | [Olympic or Empire Games meeting. In i ■ the second place Mr. Isaacs wanted | j to bring over someone fully capable of ' coaching promising swimmers and

clivers in New Zealand, with the ultimate object of forming a strong team to compete overseas. Until he enlisted. Dyer was in a position to carry out coaching, but as he has turned professional since he landed in New Zealand, that writes "finis” to any hopes he may formerly have had about representing New Zealand as an amateur. For five consecutive years Dyer represented New South Wales at tennis, and he describes himself as "a freelance at everything.’’ He contributed a number of sporting articles to Sydney newspapers, and has studied sport not only as a performer but as a student. He was in Westport for a while playing Rugby football with the Westport seniors, but most of the past year he has spent in Wellington, where he played with the Army team, usually among the backs as a wing or centrethreequarter. His build gives the impression that he would prove useful in the pack should the occasion arise, and when he told, me how low his trained weight is it came very much as a surprise. While in Wellington he ran a swim- ! ming and diving school, as a profes- : sional coach, and before Hitler kicked i over the traces against Poland it was i his intention to open a similar train- ; ing establishment in Auckland. Now? ' Well, he’s "in the army now,” and he I finishes the sentence with an expres- ! sivc shrug. In Wellington, Loo, he api peered in the boxing ring as a middleI weigh!, but perhaps the real basis of I liis all-rpund sporting prowess was • mid in Australian gymnasiums, where ' extensive experience at an early age ; nelpc-d tc mould the athletic ability with which he seems to have been born. ! Last summer ho had plans almost i compl’Le to attempt to swim Cook i Strait, but influenza intervened. He |l as captured three provincial records 1 for the 50-yard sprint swim since he | has i. • en in New Zealand, but his only i attempt on the national record failed by a tenth of a second. He had hopes j of making another attempt this summer, but now, of course ... He has made many spectacular high dives, and here again his scrapbook photographs amply prove his claims. One such dive was from the bridge of the Awatea. Although only in his early twenties, Dyer has a fund of interesting reminiscence, for his intensive sports traini ing has not prevented him from wide ! travel. He has, in fact, covered a | greater mileage than most men three i times his age, and claims to have put J .;50,000 miles behind him. This includes ; two trips around the world. One was i to England with the Australian team ' lor the Games, and the other took him Ito the United States and Canada. I where he spent some time studying | American training methods and get- ; ting familial with American outdoor i pastimes. The rest of his huge mileI age is mainiy accounted for by seven t’.ips right lound Australia, made in | '.he capacity of tour manager for an {Aust’alian tourist company. i His journalistic work, as a free ' lance sporting critic in Sydney, did. not | effect his amateur status, although the i dividing line between the amateurs | and professionalism is nowhere more sharply drawn than over there, particularly as regards swimming.