Personalities In N.Z. Sport

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 559, 11 January 1929, Page 7

Personalities In N.Z. Sport

MR. F. J. OHLSON WAS AN ACTIVE ATHLETE AND NOTED ADMINISTRATOR A life member of at least eight different sports bodies —this gives some indication of the high place which Mr. F. J. Ohlson has always held in the realms of sport in Auckland. Although now retired from his profession of school teaching, and, in fact, recently recovered from an illness, Mr. Ohlson. who is evidently made of the stuff which keeps men active, is favoured with a breezy personality, and he still participates in tennis and golf with all the vigour of a much younger man. Born in Maoriland. Mr. Ohlson when only a youngster became an amateur athlete and competed in open company. While in his home recently, a Sun man caught a glimpse, among the numerous trophies and souvenirs, of a handsome cup which was clinched for the winning of a big quarter-mile handicap some time back in 1X34. He

was one who assisted to a large extent in resuscitating the once nearly dead Auckland Amateur and Athletic Club, a body of which later he became president and secretary. Although a great all-rounder, Mr. Ohlson showed more of a weakness, perhaps, for cricket than he did for any other branch of sport. In wielding the willow he first came into the limelight while teaching in a country school. It was while there that lie compiled a sensational score which resulted in him being selected to play for the Auckland representatives against Hawke’s Bay. He later became captain of the Parnell Club, and skippered its senior eleven when it won the senior championship in 1903. After giving up the game, Mr. Ohlson was appointed sole selector for Auckland and also became one of the selectors for New Zealand. On the administrative side of the sport he was for many years a member of the Management Committee of the Auckland Cricket Association, later to become chairman and a life member. His chief winter pastime was Rugby, and he played for the old Orafton seniors in the days when Grafton and Ponsonbv were the only two senior teams of any consequence in Auckland. He became a member of the Management Committee of the Auckland Rugby Union in 1X96. and was later elected chairman of that body. At the present time be is a life member and a vice-president. Ilis active career on the playing field was brought to a close owing to an injury he received early in his footballing career, but he then donned the referee’s jersey and became chairman of the Referees’ Association. Mr. Ohlson presided at the first Referees' Conference, which met at Wellington in 1901. He toured as a member of the official party with the All Blacks in 1924. On his leaving the cricket game, he became a member of the Auckland Tennis Association, and was president in 1920, the year that the Davis Cup matches were played in Auckland. H© is now a vice-president of the association and spends a deal of his time in conducting school championships. To deal fully with the remarkable career in sport of Mr. Ohlson’s would take many columns. Both in the playing and administrative sides of nearly every branch of sport of any importance, his good work has been invaluable, and the schools especially owe a great deal to his untiring and life-long devotion to sport, for he has introduced into both the primary and secondary sehols numerous games and competitions.