[Published the day after the Olympics closing sessions]
Melvin Sheppard, JE Meredith and H Braun were running at Berlin yesterday. Their next appearance is at Buda Pest, after which they journey to Scotland where they hope to spend a couple of weeks. Then they go to England, and after running at Manchester, return home for the American championships in September.
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The Rangers FC are holding a two-day meeting after all – a decision which will be greatly appreciated by all our athletes, who on the whole have not been over-employed all season. Monday will, as usual, be given over largely to football of the five-a-side order, and six of the leading teams will be invited to take part in the competition. Besides the usual handicaps there will be several invitation races, the distance of which will be settled when it is known who will be coming to Glasgow for this meeting.
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Kilbirnie Ladeside Football Club are running a sports meeting on Saturday. The programme will consist of the orthodox handicaps, with the addition of a three miles event, in which all the better known distance runners will take part. Duncan McPhee, the discovery of the season, will run, and it will be interesting to see how he fares with the shorter marks he is sure to get in view of his recent successes at Beith and Ayr. At neither of these meetings was he stretched, and it just about time his resources were subjected to a severer test than he has yet been asked to face. His win in the mile at Ayr involved little more than a canter. At some stages, in fact, he had to put the drag on, so as not to win by too much. No runner has ripened so rapidly as Duncan McPhee of Clydesdale Harriers.
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JHD Watson, who has come into prominence as a long jumper this season (he scored a brilliant win in the international at Powderhall on Saturday) will captain Edinburgh Academicals in the rugby field next season in place of JMB Scott who is said to have retired from the game definitely, which of course remains to be seen. Watson is a fine all-round sportsman, being good at almost everything he takes up, and he has a variegated career as while representing Scotland as he did against Ireland on Saturday, he is said to have declined a Rugby decoration from the Scottish Football Union owing to his English associations. Watson will make an excellent successor to Scott, and the fine rugby traditions of the Academicals will certainly not suffer in his hands.
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The announcement that Hannes Kolehmainen is to run at Rangers FC Sports has given great satisfaction in athletic circles, and the ‘light blues’ are to be congratulated on their enterprise. Of the many imposing figures at Stockholm, Kolehmainen was by no means the least; as a matter of fact he has been exalted to the highest position among Olympic winners through having secured three firsts. The Finn is great over distances ranging from two to ten miles, and is in this respect another Shrubb, whose records at Ibrox Park in 1904 still hold the field. Kolehmainen still has designs on Shrubb’s figures and it is just possible that Rangers will include a distance race in their programme with a view to affording this great runner an opportunity of dispossessing Shrubb’s times of the pre-eminence they have so long enjoyed.
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The Celtic directors met on Friday afternoon and reviewed the arrangements made by Mr William Maley for the sports next month. These, it is scarcely necessary to say, are on a very enterprising scale – as enterprising as in 1908 when several American Olympic champions ran at Parkhead. It is understood that Messrs Lippincott, Meredith and Sheppard are certain starters, and it is just possible that there may be others. These are all record smashers. Lippincott and Meredith will be strangers but Sheppard has been both at Ibrox and Parkhead and few will forget his performances at these grounds. Sheppard is as great as ever over distances ranging from 440 yards to a mile; indeed, we should say that he has no equal anywhere over these distances. It is rare to see a man who is first-class over 440 yards also first-class at a mile. Sheppard embodies this threefold distinction and, though he does not come to Glasgow as Olympic champion, as in 1908 he comes as one who figured with great distinction in all three events at Stockholm.
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The suggestion thrown out by the racing reporter of “The Herald” that the executive of the Ayr Racecourse should include Fair Saturday in their July programme has caused something like consternation in the ranks of the Ayr United Football Club who have had that day for the last twenty years for their sports. No other day in the summer calendar will suit them and the Race Committee know what will inevitably flow from any attempt on their part to appropriate Fair Saturday. As it is, the races during the Glasgow holiday week have taken largely from the interest hitherto shown in the sports, and it is believed that an enlargement of the programme on the lines suggested by the racing reporter of “The Herald” simply means death to the sports. Up to the present Mr Shaw has worked cordially with the Ayr United FC Sports Committee and in more ways than one has shown an interest in the sports. But, however tempting an increase from two to three days racing may seem, there is reason to believe that in the meantime at least the executive have no intention of falling in with the suggestion to annex Fair Saturday.
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There are over 100 entries – to be precise the number is 1033 – for the Army Championships at Aldershot on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. It is only natural such a portentous list should include many whose names are well known in athletic and other sporting circles. Lieut RJ Simson, the rugby three-quarter back for instance, will run in the 100 yards,over which he had a good reputation at Edinburgh Academy, and there are others who have also distinguished themselves in the football field. Lieut Alan Patterson, one of Great Britain’s Olympic team, will figure in the quarter-mile and half-mile, both of which he should win. Lieutenant Halswell has held these championships, but Army form, as of today, is not of the superlative excellence to which Halswell brought it. Corporal Hutson, the AAA Four Miles champion, and Sergeant O’Neil of Irish international note, are the leading lights in the distance races. Hutson, of course, is a great runner, and if he does not win the one mile, the three miles looks a good thing for him. The Army Championships are a great sporting and social function and Aldershot ill in consequence be a scene of much gaiety and joyous mirth this week.
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The racing at the supplementary meeting of the Ayr United FC was quite up to expectations. Evening sport, strange to say, is always of a higher standard than afternoon sport, and the Ayr meeting was no exception in this respect. Douglas McNicol of Polytechnic Harriers, did not win the 1000 yards but he got second, being only half a dozen yards behind the winner in the fast time of 2 min 17 1-5th sec. It was a North of England runner who beat McNicol. The sprints were extra good, the final of the 100 yards resulting in a perfect finish; the proverbial lady’s handkerchief would have covered the lot at the post.
D Macintosh of Bellahouston Harriers (six yards) was the winner. His maiden win was at the Queen’s Park sports three years ago, and he has broken the tape several times since, though somehow he always hovers on the same mark or thereabouts. The walk was very diverting, and many would like to see this item more widely recognised by sports clubs. Everyday athletics are far too serious and austere, and it is events like walking and jumping and obstacles that impart the necessary hilarity. The cycle races were both interesting and exciting, although Vic Johnston was not in as good form as we have sometimes seen him at Somerset Park. F Boor, who is coming to the Celtic Sports, beat him in the scratch five miles invitation race after a display of fine racing judgment. The home riders did well in the open handicaps claiming five out of six prizes.
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