THE HONGAONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1950.
THE MCC MEN ARE NOT RABBITS
Says A. J. Cummings
The English, every foreigner says, are an unpredictable people. to do at any You are never quite sure what an Englishman is going given moment in any particular set of circumstances; and frequently he does what you least expect him to do.
Such sweeping generalisations don't stand up to careful analysis. But they are easy to make and sometimes they appear to be justified.
Who would have supposed, for instance, that when the MCC sent out to Aus- tralia the best team of cricketers they could bring together, under a captain hailed they landed on Aus- as a godsend, these unfortunate fellows,, from the moment tralian soil, would be battered by such a tornado of derisory criticism as no body of players in any sport has ever had to endure?
'Australians have followed the ' example of English writers on the
game in anathematising Brown and his how not merry wicked men as if they were. little boys deliberately parading their incompetence,
And all this before even the first ball in the first Test match has been bowled.
If an English fielder misses a catch, the critics pounce upon him like a pack of wolves; making it quite certain that out of sheer nervous fright and that on the first day in the field in the first Test the poor wretch will be almost unfit for publica-
tion.
Another Australian writer stomach trouble an Australian comment was that what most pompously declares:
of them lacked was "heart." In other words, they are cowards, too.
The Sports
Roundabout
By W. Capel Kirby And David Jack
Wouldn't it be strange if Bolton Wanderers earned the unenviable distinction of having
missed two England centre- forwards? Bill Holden, 22-year- old. Burnley leader from the Astley Bridge district, is a cert to follow in the Lawton foot- steps, in the opinion of colleague Bert Fogg, In fact, Bert goes so far as to say he's the most promising centre-forward to appear on the horizon since the war.
*
Tom Whit second lieutenant at accepted the Air of the Royal
Jack Crayston, The whole future of inter-
taker's depends nation cricket
on
Highbury, has how soon the men at the head
the I don't think this kind cricket pave
of Presidency of English way by drastic changes in pretentious lecture rather like Force Association at his native their domestic system to an overbearing headmaster be- Grange-over-Sands. enable Englishmen's prowess at the English national game to recover its old-time pres- tige.
#
with
rating to lovers of cricket gen- erally. It is too much of a not
Croydon Rovers, the club very good thing.
which hit the headlines In our own country millions offers to both Neil Franklin and Though I have only a vague of men and boys and a great Alan Brown, have now decided
of many women either play' to
look elsewhere for their
or watch it or fol-player-manager. Chairman H.W. game Rose writes to ask if we know
idea of the inner meaning that oracular pronouncement, it cricket is evidently intended to threaten low the fortunes of the
doom of international with undying interest. cricket all because of tenth- rate performances. by our vil-i lage team down under.
the
"Oh! this defeatist, slapdash MC.C.," eriés, one headline in a despairing English newspaper; -and an Australian writer dis- They are not only, it would
whole lot misses the
in seem, feeble exponents of withering scorn as "a packet of game. When four of them were
be said to
suffering from
razor blades."
the
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OES
Situation Gets
Most Curious
By ARCHIE QUICK
world
Let
few
ward
In a naughty world, ridden with disputes and harried by a cold war that keeps on heating up, they have been looking for
eagerly
to an innocent and exciting diversion that has delighted the hearts of genera- tions of British sportsmen ́everywhere,
HAMMER BLOWS
Now they are being told, in a series of hammer-blows, that all they will get is a disgusting massacre of rabbits by a team of supermen.
It would scarcely be sur- prising if they began to get a bit nasty with the soothsayers. "Sport begets tumultuous strife and wrath," Horace wrote long, long ago, "and wrath begets flerce quarrels and to the death." But Horace had in mind something very differ ant from the jeremiads of solemn soothsayers.
war
There may be much to be
do
of a good player who would like to start in a managerial career. Wages offered are £12 a week summer and £15 plus bonus during the season. one interested?
Any-
Bolton, West Bromwich, Bury, Villa and other League club officials, disappointed at not having an opportunity of sizing up Charlie Tully's 17-year-old
at Kidderminster brother cently, were, nevertheless, im- pressed by Billy Tatum, right half-back secured from Grimsby Town on the recommendation of
Tom Galley. *
re-
From London Bridge to Stam- About half of ford Bridge? Chelsea's stewards and gatemen are railway employees.
100
Less resistance in the atmos- phere in Australia is one of the MCC why several
Bob Berry, reasons players, including
Dewes, Brian Close and John have "thrown their arms (out."
To quote Lewis Carroll, the bantamweight boxing position becomes "curiouser and curiouser." us take stock of the peculiar happenings of the last months in something like chronological order.
Mexican-American Manuel. Ortiz leaves his sunny said, after all, for the American
Bobby Bogan surprised his Californian farm for South Africa and goes and gets practice of "rooting" for your Kemsley newspaper workmates by his himself beaten in the high Johannesburg altitudes by side
jh Glasgow recently local Vic Toweel for the world crown, Luis Romero, of Let us without delay a #tuneful rendering of "The White Barcelona, administers the mother and father of a hiding little rooting for our tormented Dove" at an office smoking con-
cricketers in the Antipodes be- cert. to British champion, Danny O'Sullivan, of London.
fore they worry themselves In his spare time Bobby, kid
brother
of Tommy, of Mán- or sulk themselves to death. Later O'Sullivan gets whipped slipped unheralded into Town,
chester United, is a forward with Boland and ad- by Bobby Boland, the chunky laced Bobby
If by some miracle and of Third Lanark, whence he arrived third round Dundee battler. Just for make. ministered
course it would be a miracle or via Stirling Albion. knock-out. weight
Coast's (Gold
Roy technical
a colossal fluke-these, frighten- Ankarah goes to Spain and really do we go from there?
This was not the Boland that ed rabbits were to win the first puts the cat among the pigeons by crushing Romero.
beat O'Sullivan so handily. He Test match, it would be my most mirth-provoking Christ- seemed white and nervous from the start, was knocked down in mas gift.
a
Where
Then Danny O'Sullivan' goes to South Africa to fight Toweel for the world title. That starts the first round & finally convinc an outcry. It should be eitheringly beaten. Romero or Boland who should get the chance seeing that
coloured Ankarah is barred from fighting in the Union, sald most everyone.
WAIT A MINUTE!
Jeven
All credit though to Annaloru. the pro- Nobody, not
about moters, knew anything this swarthy, good looking fellow, except that he is of Italian parentage.
But wait a minute. We saw All I can say is that on this a further upset to further com- form it is he who shoud be in plicate the situation at Empress South Africa fighting Toweel. Hall, London, when an unknown Remember too that Romero has Tunisian, one Gaetan Annaloro, been defeated by a Belgian!
One other thought which
THE GAMBOLS Barry Appleby
YOU'RE LIKE ALL YOU DON'T GARE WHICH TEASH WIN 20 LONG AS THE RIBATI GAMES YOU CHOOSE ARE DRAWN
2
Recent visitor to the mainland old Dis- claim to was Dick McBurney, tillery player, whose fame is that he was one of only If they lose the rubber, Eng-three goalkeepers ever to stop a land will manage to survive Steve Bloomer penalty. and so possibly
English cricket.
will
Manicou Wins Ewell Chase
Sandown Park, Surrey,
Dec. 14. Queen Elizabeth saw her
*
An Australian car firm has put a fleet of cars at the disposal of MCC players for transport to and from the grounds. We've heard of footballers who've had cars put at their disposal for longer periods. • Difference is that they call them their own.
Coaching local Soccer youth on the bowling green attached house 'is to his Bolton public
and Preston former Bolton
occurs over the Empress Hall five-year-old steeplechaser, Scottish international winger
tournament is that we saw a
It's not true very fine example of how pro-Manicou, jump to an easy Alex Donaldson.
win in the that the All-England Lawn Thising young British boxers are six-lengths
the centre court to a local hockey club.
"killed" by over-matching. Ewell Handicap Chase here Tennis Club has refused to lease
Up-and-coming Jeff Tite, a Northamptonshire yeoman farmer's son, with quite a good record, was thrown in with ex- perienced Charles Humez, Paris.
of
today.
Manicou's task was made.
easier when the top-weight, England's amateur interna- Freddie Fox, after producing tional right-back this season will a great burst of speed to range almost certainly be a player who alongside the Royal horse, ran thought he had played his last That Tite took a lot of punish-off the course four fences out.
game for England-Jack Neales ment from a mah who has
Serious knee injury prevented Neale kicking a ball for nine months but he tells us, "I'm 100 percent fit again thanks to an operation."
beaten Cliff Curvis and Gwyn The gelding's victory provided Williams was not surprising, nor was the throwing-in of the towel in the third round.
ܪ ܂
What is surprising is that the British Board of Control and Tite's manager allowed, such a prospect to the exposed to such Treatment. Tite's future must obviously be affected and we are not so rich in talent that we can afford this
the Queen with a consolation for the loss of Monaveen, who had to be destroyed after falling at Hurst Park two weeks ago.
It also fittingly coincided with Former Dundee centreforward w
Alex Stott, how relegate the King's birthday,
Manicou started a hot 4 to 5 Bartick reserves is train favourite in a field of nine run-Dens Park again. Ales which was no bones about “wanting nere for the race,
reg mles, five furlongs and an English Second elins has mauired the
Verüber.
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