“EDDIE” UNMASKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1050, 14 August 1930, Page 1

“EDDIE” UNMASKED

BRITISH TEAM’S ADMIRER IS FEMININE THREE GIRLS’ LOYALTY Special to TIIE SUH WELLINGTON, Today. “Eddie,” the British Rugby team's mysterious supporter, has been unmasked at last. The pseudonym which has baffled visitors for so long cloaks the identity of three girls, one Irish, another Scottish, and the third Canadian, who early in the tour formed the idea of sending the tourists a wire before and after each match, and have kept it up religiously ever since. • One of the girls’ names was Edith, hence the distinguishing name that was devised. So interested were the members of the team in “Eddie's” identity that on their return to Wellington last week they inserted in the personal columns of a local newspaper an advertisement reading: “Eddie, would like to meet you, J. 8.” The ultimate discovery, however, was made quite by accident at a dance given in the team’s honour. The full party will reassemble tomorrow in time for an official morning tea party to be tendered at Parliament Buildings by the Prime Minister. In the meantime most of the men are occupying themselves quietly with the completion of their packing. S. A. Martindale, whose poisoned face is almost better, was given leave from Bowen Street Hospital for a few hours today, and will be discharged tomorrow. The receipts for the tour have not yet been completed, according to a member of the New Zealand Union’s Finance Committee, and as full returns have not 3'et been made by the provincial unions, and many accounts to be charged against the tour have not yet been rendered, it will bo some time yet before a final statement will be available. There will probably be some profit from the Australian tour, the returns from which are being shared by the New Zealand and New South Wales Unions on a fifty-fifty basis. Mr. E. Wylie, a member of the New Zealand Union’s Management Committee, will accompany the touring party in Australia. Taff Davis, its efficient and popular trainer, will, much to the British team’s regret, not go on to Australia, as arrangements have been made by the New South Wales Union for another trainer to join the party in Sydnav.