It is unfortunate that on its athletes returning from the Empire Games, New Zealand should learn that the members of the team were not a happy family. Fortunately, investigation and heart to heart talks with team-members dispel the idea that friction was rife and that arguments were features of the tour.

Frank Grose, well-known cyclist and a much-travelled athlete while inclined to laugh at the story of discord, realised that the story could do a great deal of harm if allowed to pass uncorrected, and told me his impressions.

“I have been all over New Zealand with athletics and cycling teams, to England and Australia with Empire Games teams, and look forward to the Olympic Games in 1940 in the hope that I may once again be associated with such fine sportsmen, and sportsmen as in the team to Sydney this year.

“There were no ‘cliques.’ We were one big family at which Horace McCormick was the ideal head. Talk of trouble is sheer nonsense.

“Of course, some of the boys were high-spirited after their events had finished, and they were able to relax after serious training, but they observed the rules of the village—in bed at 10 p.m.—and if nine hours’ sleep wasn't enough, I think it was!

“The story about knotted pyjamas and ‘apple-pied’ beds should not be taken seriously. Personally, I seldom lie awake thinking about my race to come on the morrow, but some of the boys did, and I think that a little practical joking of this nature helped the athlete more than it hindered him.”

Sir James Leigh Wood, president of the British Empire Games Federation, told me at Christchurch that the “incidents” at the Games were magnified out of proportion.

“The behaviour of the New Zealand representatives was excellent. Your manager was the right man for the job, and he did not have to keep a tight rein on the members. I am sorry to read that a misguided youth has seen fit to rush into print, casting reflections on the sportsmanship of the other members of your team. Be assured, your boys and girls proved true representatives of a fine sporting country.

“And permit me to tell your readers of your great athlete, Cecil Matthews.

“Our three-miler, Peter Ward, was the one athlete we felt certain would win an Empire title. He had finished second to the Olympic champion a few months earlier at Oslo and had been invited to attempt the world record there this spring.

“Well, Ward ran his usual race; he kept in a handy position, knowing the pace to be fast enough, and, with a lap to go, I watched to see him put in his devastating finish. He moved up to Matthews when, to my horror— yes, horror!—Matthews went away from him. Down the back stretch Matthews must have covered the hundred yards in eleven seconds, and would have tested a sprinter!

“Well, you know that Matthews won, and won well. I went along to Ward and sympathised with him.

“‘No need to feel sorry for me, sir,’ replied Ward, ‘I was beaten, fairly and squarely by a better man and sympathy is not necessary.'

“That was the reply of a great sportsman—it was typical of the man, and typical of many other athletes at the Empire Games—but, somehow these incidents did not get the publicity their importance deserved. But it was, I assure you, the Real spirit at the Empire Games!”

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Another high honour has been paid New Zealand—Cecil Matthews is the first New Zealand athlete to receive a special invitation from the English Amateur Athletic Association to visit England to participate in a track meeting. He has been asked to travel all the way from New Zealand but, wisely, has expressed regret that he deems it unwise to do any more travelling for a year.

Matthews, nowadays feted as the greatest distance runner produced in the British Empire, experienced a lean period after his Olympic competition in Berlin, and received more brickbats than bouquets—not that they worried him!— and is not anxious to undermine his health by excessive competition.