ALL SPORTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 175, 14 October 1927, Page 10

ALL SPORTS

j A Weekly Budget ,

The Rugby season is All Blacked out. » * • The opening season for “ducks” will start very soon. * * * A non-swearing golf club has been organised in Yorkshire, England. But are there sufficient dumb sportsmen to form a club? * * • The Prussian Diet has passed an expenditure of £ 5,000 for preparations for the Olympic Games of next year. * • * “Round the World Drive,” announces a headline. By a motorist not a golfer, though many have —at the 19th hole. ** • * From an English paper: Intercounty Athletics. High jump: Middlesex, lift 3in, 1; Hampshire, lift lain, 2. Obviously a relay jump. An American sports writer says that tho English are the best losers in the world. He seems to forget all the practice they have had. A golf professional in England recently performed a sod-cutting ceremony in Yorkshire. We hear that he replaced the turf from force of habit. ; * * * A Mrs. Montana, of Algiers, has put up a world’s record by tearing a bundle of 110 playing cards in halves. After a game of poker we often feel like following her example. A Crack Threequarter Che of the best threequarters with the British team that toured South Africa in 1925 was R. Mi. Kinnear, now playing League for Wigan, the club for which Brown, Davidson and Mason are appearing. Decree Nisi In an English divorce court last month the Hon. Lionel H. Tennyson, the former England, and present Hampshire cricket captain, petitioned for the dissolution of his marriage on the grounds of his wife's misconduct. A decree nisi was granted. * * * Cheeky Sparrow The London sparrows are proverbially cheeky, and those that patronise Lord’s are the cheekiest of them all (states a writer in “Sporting Life”). It. is not an uncommon thing for them, to hop about in the neighbourhood of the wicket when a match is in progress, and when Hearne was bowling in the Gentlemen v. Players’ game one particularly saucy bird alighted a few yards from the batsman’s wicket, lust about where the ball would pitch. The batsman was ready to receive the ball, and Hearne was just about to deliver it when he noticed the sparrow luietly surveying the scene. It iyas really amusing to notice its unconcern in holding up the game, nor would it be frightened away easily. The difficulty was got over by Hearne tossing the ball toward it, though a bit wide, so as not actually to hit it., and the bird then flew chattering away.

Two “Finds” Arriving at a cricket field to find that his team was two men short, a director of an English company motored 10 miles back to his factors' and brought back two workmen to fill the places. He did it with the idea of giving the men a pleasant holiday. It certainly was a day out for them, as one scored 159 runs, and made two fine catches, and the other cleanbowled three men.

“Buster” Andrews E. D. Andrews, according to private advices, has already started tennis at Home. His experience on the courts of Cambridge University may raise him to the first flight among the world’s players. * * * Badminton in Auckland The Auckland Badminton Club has had a most successful inaugural season, and the game may now be considered firmly established. J. Kelly, who has played a great deal in Ireland, is an acquisition to the club, which next year should have the strongest men’s team in New Zealand.

An Unusual Interruption During a recent football match between the Sydney Harbour Bridge employees and Lane Cove, at Lane Cove, Sydney, play was interrupted while the members of both teams got down on their hands and knees to search for a glass eye which one player had lost. The eye eventually was found trampled in the damp turf.

Tom Pauling A lot of the old Rugby Union brigade will hear with regret that Tom Pauling, one of the finest forwards New Zealand ever produced, has died in a Sydney hospital. Tom got. his first All Black’s cap against the Queenslanders at Wellington in the famous “watej; polo” match in 1896, and went over to Australia with the All Blacks of the following year. Staying in Australia. Tom repped for New South Wales in 1899. He was a referee in subsequent years. • * * Some Excitement! A greyhound which had competed in mechanical coursing races suddenly went mad in a suburb of Sydney while being taken back to its kennel after a contest at a recent meeting. Its owner dropped the leash, and the dog, screeching madly, dashed into a Chinese laundry. Workers ran for their lives, and work was completely suspended till the dog emerged and made for a bank, where it caused a suspension of operations. The yelping dog leapt at the counter, while the clerks erected hasty barricades and telephoned for the police. Constables raced to the spot with ropes, and lassoed the hound. With their hands covered by leather gloves, the policemen tried to soothe the animal, which soon, however, relieved them of further anxiety by going into fatal convulsions.