FROM THE SCRAP BOOK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 4

FROM THE SCRAP BOOK

JOTTINGS OF INTEREST FROM HERE AND THERE

Don Bradman requires 86 runs to reach the 1000 mark for first-class matches for the present season. He will have his opportunity in the final Sheffield Shield match between South Australia and Victoria this month. Bradman has scored 1000 runs in firstclass cricket every season since he started in Sydney in 1928.

If plans for New Zealand's Centenary tennis tourney at Wellington are successfully carried through, players from Australia, America, England, and possibly the Continent, will compete at Miramar. The New Zealand Association has already communicated with a number of players. Top-ranking exponents in various parts of the world have been asked if they would consider an invitation to New Zealand.

Dixie Dean, British Soccer idol and holder of the j,oals<~cring record—6o it, a season—.ms retired. His agreement has been earn cl.cd by Notts County. He intends to be a professional talent scnit f or B ’kenheai. Dean i was oy far lie most prolific player in the game, having scored 3'6 goals in 431 matches. He earned t’.i internatioial caps and numerous champions ila medals.

Cricketer in Fray. A member of the M.C.C. louring team was involved in an anti-British demonstration during the South African Voortrekker (pioneer) celebrations in Pretoria recently. He helped to rescue an Englishman who was attacked in a Pretoria street. His hands were covered with blood when he came out of the fray. The celebrations had a decidedly anti-British tone.

An unusual incident occurred in a recent foursomes golf match on the Maesdue course in Wales. The opposing players were Percy Alliss and R. Burton, England, and A. Dailey and W. Davis, Scotland. At the short 13th holes Alliss’ tee shot embedded itself 9ft. from the hole. Davis sportingly lifted the ball and placed it out of the hole. Alliss insisted that as there was no local rule covering the matter, the ball had to be played under the Royal and Ancient Club's rule. He replaced it. Actually Alliss was not consistent under the rules. He should have claimed the hole when Davis touched his ball. .

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club intends to take drastic measures to prohibit amateur golfers from receiving golf balls from manufacturers as presents. Many well-known amateurs receive whole boxes of balls, aggregating thousands every month, thus diverting hundreds of pounds from the pockets of professionals. This practice will be strongly opposed by the Royal and Ancient Club, which points out that it constitutes a breach of the rule allowing for only two balls marked "sample" being accepted as gifts. Players’ entries for championships may be refused without explanation if it is found that the rule has been disobeyed.

Regarinng "bosie” bowlers. H. Carter says H. V. Hordern was on his own among those to whom he kept wickets. For a test series he reckons Hordern to have been the best “bosie” bowler of all nations, although on his day—for one match, perhaps—D. J. T. Bosanquet could be greater still.

Decima Norman, Australia's triple Empire Games winner, who has made hei home in Sydniy, has set her heart cn winning selection in the Australian team for the 1949 Clympic Games. Miss Norman has jo i.ed the South Sydney Athh’c Club.

It is possible that a New Zealander may play for England's Rugby fifteen this season. Sergeant E. I. Parsons, ol Christchurch, who is a member of the Royal Air Force, played for The Rest against England recently, when the England selectors were surprised to watch The Rest win by 17 points to 3. Parsons played at fullback, and Mr. P. Lawless, in the Daily Telegraph, said that lie fielded extremely well. The Observer's correspondent said that Parsons was given a deserved trial, but had hardly anything to do compared with his opposite number. He helped the score, however, by converting a try.

Mildred Didrikson, the American lady athlete, who performed with distinction at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932, was married recently to the American professional wrestler, George Zaharias. They first became friends on a Los Angeles golf course and subsequently paired in tournament play. It is their intention to spend part of their honeymoon in Australia.

“Still Good for a While.” George Cook, forty-year-old Australian heavyweight boxer, will not give up boxing. The other day he was knocked out in the second round of a ten-round fight by Jack London at Black Friars, London. After the bout Cook said: “I have no intention of giving up boxing yet. I’m still good for a while." Henry Cotton’s American trip sti'l hangs fire. “I have asked for a guarantee ot £2OOO and my expenses,” he told me, “and the only reply I have received trom the promoters is that I should not have the slightest difficulty in earning this sum from exhibiiion matches. But that does not satisfy me. I want a guarantee, and I shall not go unless it is forthcoming." Tennis Marathon. How is this for a tennis marathon? R. Hunt played 135 games in a tournament at Manly the other day (says an exchange). He was one of the first players on the courts at 10 a.m., and one of the last to leave at 7 p.m. Hunt played in five doubles matches, comprising 14 sets. He only spelled for three-quarters of an hour for lunch and for refreshments between matches. He and his partners won nine of the 14 sets, and 74 ot the 135 games.