Personalities In N.Z. Sport

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 839, 6 December 1929, Page 7

Personalities In N.Z. Sport

Champion Player and A blc Administrator of Bonding

Tlio president of the South Auckland Bowling Centre, Air. R. N. Pilkington, who was in the city during the week participating in the half-yearly con-

test for the Hard ley Shield, is one of the outstanding personalities of bowling in New Zealand. Commencing his career in the game on the green at the Waikato club during the year 1909, it required only his first season's introduction to bowling to make him the champion of his club during the second season, so soon did he show his rare ability to play the game. He then joined the Whitiora club and there met with similar success.

Including a number of minor victories, all showing conclusively his steadines as well as brilliance in the game. R. N. Pilkington has won tournaments ranging from those of local colour to those supreme blue ribbon tests of the Dominion, while he is to be frequently found dominently lighting out the concluding honours for the event in which he enters. FINE RECORD OF SUCCESS

His successes -include the Te Aroha tournaments, winner of the Hamilton Cup on two occasions, the Tauranga tournament on three occasions, the South Auckland Banner seven times: the Auckland Banner on one occasion: the North Island tournament, and the champion banner of the Dominion in the year 1925. But his activities in the realm of bowling have not been confined to the game on the green. Indeed, it is most pleasing to say that he has adways felt it a personal obligation that he should put his weight and his assistance into the administrative side of the game, as well as the playing side. And in this respect he has shown similarly the clear ability to steer the sport to safe channels with the same dexterity as to skip a team against the sternest opposition on the green. Not only has he been associated with club activities and in turn the never-ending work on the Centre, but, besides being president of the South Auckland Centre, he has been a member of the Dominion Bowling Council, the governing body of the game for the Dominion, for the past seven successive years. During that time his wide experience of the game, excellence in play and his deep interest in the progress of the sport has been of infinite value to the Council. New Zealand bowling is certainly the richer for Mr. Pilkington’s association with the sport.

But his influence extends even further than that. It has a quiet personal charm, for he appeals stronglv to the rank and tile of the sport. Indeed. it ;s almost unknown lor the great body of bowlers to call him Mi Pilkington. He is almost universally addressed in the more familiar nickname of •Dick." It matters not whether a young player requires a fen points on the deliver> of his woods or whether knotty problems of the government of the game are involved All receive able treatment in the same quiet, impersonal manner. As a player, he instantly commands attention from the bank in the bis tussles for the concluding honours b\ his style of play. Indeed, it is no uncommon prr*ctice for players, both who are actually learning the game and those who have studied the finer points, to watch the play of this

masterly exponent of the game on the green: and it is widely regarded as a fine education in the fine points of the game to watch his able treatment of the mrfny varying phases presented in the construction of heads. It is difficult to say on what side of hia bowling career Dick Pilkington excels most. He is equally a front rank bowler, as he is a very able administrator of the game and a tine fellow to meet.