RETURN OF PERRY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 101, 15 May 1937, Page 14

RETURN OF PERRY

MATCHES IN BRITAIN ' EYT3 -OF- WIMBLEDON PLANS. HIS MONEY-MAKING SUOCESS. Arrangements have now been cojnpleted for Fred Perry to retum to Britain in June and take part in a professional tournament on the eve of the Wimbledon championships. He will be accompanied by Ellsworth Vines, W. T. Tilden, and other players, and they will compete for substantial prizes as well as a share in the receipts. Indoor lawn tennis of an exhibition |ty>pe has not hitherto made much appeal, but Perry has not lost his public, and I believe the event, which is to take place at the Wembley Swimming Pool, where there is accommodation for 12,000 /people, will be an outstanding success, says an English writer. . No . one blames Perry for commercialising his skill' on the courts. |He ls reported to have made about £15,000 already by his matches with Vines and Tilden in Amerioa, and by the end of the year it is expeoted that his earnings will amount to £25,000 Perry has always had a business instinct, and in becoming a professional he believed that he could make £50,000. He realised, too, that he would have to earn the money quickly, and he has mapped out a programme to amass this sum in two years. Then it is his intention to retire from the game and enter on a business career. Indeed he has already been promised an important post with a leading sports outfitting firm. Perry's plan is much the same as that followed by Bobby Jones, who sacrificed his amateur status at time when he was the leading golfer in the world, in order to make a fo^tune by producing instructional films. As soon as his Hollywood contract was completed he plunged into a business career with an American golf ball manufacturing firm. In fact, he has not played compeititive golf since he retired as an amateur.

Bennie Osler, one of the mpst noted exponents of this art in the world, has done much for South Africa by using that medium of scoring. An outstandIng example of a club team in New Zealand relying greatly on the dropkick can be given .by Wanganui, where Kaierau has repeatedly won important champiOnship matches through Jack Morgan being a clever exponent of the drop-kick. At timeS the eagerness with which that team has endeavoured to get Morgan with action has developed into almost a fetish. A drop-kick is, at the same time, the most heartening of the most dishearening scoring medium. In th« one movement a player can register a score which can only be equalled and bettered by a converted try — two distinct actions. Yet to score from dropkicked goais is an art and, as such, is entitled to full reward. The question is — how much? A fair thing would be three points, the reward for a penalty kick at goal. Four points is too big a reward and in some cases three means more than the kick deserves. From a Rugby Union point of view 'we want more scoring from open team work rather than from kicking, and the time seems opportune to review the field goal and curtail its power of devastation. No scoring medium in Rugby can so wilt another team and break its heart, all because the reward is at least one, perhaps two, points too great. — "Crossbar."