Felt Every Blow

NZ Truth, Issue 1183, 2 August 1928, Page 1

Felt Every Blow

Heeney, but Gisborne as well, who knocked Tunney through the ropes. The town is built that way — with an undercurrent of loyalty comparable with none. ' It groaned with Heeney and it fought with him, but it never sunk its loyalty when its hero lost the verdict. The New York> announcer said: "Heeney's eye is very bad. I don't think he can see at all. Heeney leaves the ring a hero to-night." That was the stuff m the Gisborne boy, the stuff of a trier, a battler and one who goes on until the last gong. That is why Gisborne became a little elated, threw a bit of its care about, drank a little of the spirit of jubilation, mentally punched Tunney silly, staged a little of the HeeneyT'unney stuff itself m a purely local amateur way, and said it would not mind taking a black eye or two for a modest £10,000 or so. That is just one way of gripping a hero by the hand and saying: "Well done, old man! We are sorry, but we were with you all through." Whilst the crowds surged round the loud-speakers m the town proper, there were a couple of listeners some miles out of town m whom the tension was a little' keener, the interest — Ir that could be possible— a little deeper, j Tom's mother and father heard the whole account direct from New York through that wonderful set of Ivan O'Meara, one of the best-known and most capable of radio amateurs m Australasia. • . From gong to gong (the sound of which came over the countless thousands of miles with remarkable clarity), the old couple heard how