WRESTLING BOOM IN ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 42, 13 November 1926, Page 24

WRESTLING BOOM IN ENGLAND

It is over twenty years ago since there was a wrestling boom, but the clock of time has gone full circle and public interest is reviving in a sport that has all the merit of antiquity to recommend it. An open-air tournament was held at Finsbury Park in mail week for the purpose of discovering, if possible, some talent to represent Britain in tlie next Olympic Games at Amsterdam.

It is a far cry from Ulysses to the would-be Olympians of Finsbury, but when the wandering hero of the Odyssey plied the outside stroke and backheeled Ajax at the funeral games for Patroclus lie was only anticipating the methods which are employed to-day by followers of the same sport.

Wrestling was an honoured sport in Greece, where the Olympic Games had their first inception. Milo, the famous strong man, is said as a mere boy to have won six Olympic Crowns at wrestling. His modern prototype ' was Georges Hackenschmidt, the Russian giant who came to England at the beginning of the twentieth century, and bv his extraordinary feats was responsible for a sensational boom that lasted five or six years.

In Hgvpt and Nineveh of old, if the sculptured bas reliefs are to be believed, wrestling was seriously practised, and Japanese tradition says that pearly 2000 vears ago two great champions of the mat fought before the Mikado Suinin, an ancestor of the present ruler of Japan.

To-dav we have Yukio Tani, the little, lithe, Jap, with bis Jujitsu mysteries, back again after a retirement of many vears, making a successful’ challenge at the age of 42 with his science against men double his own weight, and thus providing an interesting link between the hoary past and a less sophisticated present.

England was always partial to the wrestling game. In Will Shakespeare s time Orlando wrestled for his credit, and a member of the Duke’s retinue refers in “As You Like It” to the curiosity of “breaking of ribs for tlie sport of ladies.” In the reign of Henry HI, there was a great match at St. Giles’s Fields between the men of Westminster and thea citizens of London. The citizens won easily enough, but when the return visit was paid to Westminster and the citizens of Lonbailiff of that district showed a poor snorting spirit, for he badly maltreated the citizens by wav of restoring the balance ‘(states a “Daily News” contributor). . . The strongholds of English wrestling to-dav are in the north and the far west. Tn LancasSire and Cumberland thev follow their tournevs with unabated enthusiasm, and keenly exploit the moves and “chins” that are centuries old. Names like those of doughty George Steadman, who dirt not

SPORT OF GIANTS

retire until he completed his. jubilee as a champion, ’ George Lowden, Tom Longmore, who once instructed Charles Dickens how to take a. hold, and “Belted Will” Richardson, who had 210 prize belts hanging in his house, arc still spoken of with reverence. In Cornwall and Devon, they fought on Spartan lines indeed, for the wrestlers used to tip their boots with iron, and kick each other on the ships. Forty years ago I remember chatting with a bald-headed old Cornishman of ninety who showed me terrible scars on his legs which he had received in the tillage tournaments of his youth.

The old bov had some rare tales to tell, and his ancient, wrinkled visage lit up with excitement as he trolled on a whistling falsetto a wrestling verse which ran something like this: So fill up your flowing bumpers, And gaily we will sing, We’ll wrestle on from morn to night, We're champions of the ring!

One of the greatest wrestlers in the West Country of old was a man named J. Coppe, who was nicknamed “Little Cock.” Although only 6ft. sin. in height, he was master of all the rings in Devon, Cornwall and Somersetshire, and the historian amusingly complains that owing to his exertions in the sport he became incurably bowlegged in his later years. . Then there was “Blind Will,” a Devon wrestler named Wreyfard who used to be led into the ring 'by a boy. He was permitted the privilege of first getting a firm hold on his opponent’s collar. He seldom failed by the kicks and trips of tlie art to throw his rivals, although they were frequently bigger men than himself. On the Continent, especially before the war, wrestling of the GraecoRoman persuasion, in which no holds below the waist or trips are permitted, was very popular, tine of the greatest exponents of the art, leaving out Hackenschmidt, whf was more of a public entertainer, was the mighty Padoubny, a Russian pt nearly 7ft. in height, and winner of innumerable tournaments in all parts of Europe. He came to England and wrestled at a tournament held at the old Hengler’s Circus, now the Pall adium.

A man of almost childlike simplicity. Padoubnv was inordinately proud of his long, fair, Viking-like moustache. .On one occasion he was wrestling against f a man named Apollon, who weighed almost 20 stone, and was correspondingly strong. Apollon was so indiscreet during the bout as to pull the Russian’s moustache. This wounded the vanity of Padoubny, who rose to his feet like an incensed Titan Lifting the offender high over his head, he carried Apollon across the ring as if he were a mere babv and then flung him down on the Press table, which, much to the discomfiture of the scribes, was immediately shattered in pieces bv the impact. the Russian and you find a Tartar indeed 1