First NZ Team Sails Overseas

While 1938 will go down in history as the year New Zealand played its first table tennis test matches (against the touring Hungarian players), 1939 is equally significant as the year we sent our first representative team overseas.

It was an adrenalin-packed few weeks in July and August for players hoping for a place in this ground-breaking team. A smart travelling uniform of grey trousers, black shirt and black blazer with a large silver fern on the pocket awaited the selected players. They would sail for Australia on 1 September, play a series of State contests, participate in two major tournaments and return a month later. The agreement with Australia called for a team of four men and a manager – whether the inclusion of women was ever considered is unknown.

Trials were played and although tension was high pending the team announcement, the selections were largely predictable. Three from the 1938 test team were retained (Ken Cantlay, Harry Boys and Eric Boniface) with new cap Russell Algie (18) joining them. A winning performance at the NZ Championships later justified Algie’s inclusion but it had taken a firm tap on the selector’s shoulder by an Algie supporter to ensure he participated in the trials (refer later article).

L/R: Russ Algie (O), Eric Boniface (W), A M C Spooner (Manager, A),
Ken Cantlay (Capt. A), Harry Boys (A)

The New Zealanders held their own in the State team contests. Their only decisive loss was to Victoria where Australia’s No 1 Ken Adamson led his team to a comfortable 8-1 win. Ken Cantlay won New Zealand’s only match, two straight over Hector Oakley. Russell Algie led Jim Thoms 18-15 in the third but succumbed 20-22. Another nail-biter was the final doubles when Oakley and Thoms beat Cantlay and Boys 11-21, 21-17, 29-27.

In all their other contests New Zealand either won (sometimes comfortably), or lost narrowly on a count-back after matches were squared. Results are a little confusing as some contests featured matches of only two games which meant the final score in those contests could only be reckoned in games. This was a compromise as two States wanted one game per match and NZ wanted best of three. NZ beat New South Wales twice (13 games to 7; 11 games to 9) and Queensland once (12 games to 8). South Australia agreed (as had Victoria) to three-game matches and a series of three ten-match contests were played against them. The first was a 5-5 draw, 14-14 in games and only a points count-back tilted the contest towards South Australia (514 to 501). The second was comfortably won by New Zealand 7-3 and the third again drawn in matches but narrowly won by South Australia 13 games to 12.

There was no test match against a full Australian team – probably the right decision considering NZ’s 1-8 loss to Victoria, Australia’s strongest state with a player base equal to the whole of New Zealand. “An all-Australia team would be too strong for a New Zealand tour at the present time,” said Mr A Spooner, NZ team manager. “But the standard appears to be rising faster in New Zealand than in Australia. And our top players are much younger.” Mr Spooner also contrasted the playing styles of the two teams. “New Zealanders play with a style that allows for more variety while the Australians still adopted the old-fashioned pen-holder grip.”

The gap between the two countries would gradually narrow but it would be fifteen years before they squared off in a full international.

Interviewed after the trip the players felt they did not always play their best. The conditions, temperature and humidity varied greatly between centres. Eric Boniface was somewhat critical of the stadium floor in Melbourne. He acknowledged that Victoria was the better team and deserved the win. “But a dance had been held in the hall the night before and all the authorities did was throw some water around,” he said. “It was not effective. The pen-gripping Australians had very little running to do while New Zealand slipped from one defeat to another. We even tried playing bare-foot to secure some kind of foothold but it didn’t help much.”

The New Zealanders deemed the playing conditions in Brisbane by far the best.

The trip was draining physically, with a total of 6,000 miles travelled plus the return sea voyage across the Tasman. Overall, the team was unanimous in their praise regarding the hospitality and sportsmanship of their Australian hosts.

It was valuable international experience for the four players and a milestone in NZTTA history.

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New Zealand Triumphs at Adelaide and Melbourne Championships

New Zealand’s best successes of the Australian visit came at the two championship tournaments which were squeezed into their busy schedule of State team contests.

First came the City of Melbourne championship on 12 September, the night after New Zealand’s 1-8 humiliation at the hands of Victoria. In a spectacular reversal of form Russell Algie, who had lost all his matches the previous night, showed his true colours to win the men’s singles. While he did not have to face Australian Champion Ken Adamson (unavailable for this tournament) his opponent in the final was Jim Thoms, another he had lost to in the Victoria contest. This time Algie won three straight.

Then followed the City of Adelaide championships. Here Algie’s luck ran out and he lost 20-22, 21-23 in the quarter-finals. But it was another New Zealander, Ken Cantlay, who replaced him on the podium. Not only did he win the singles but combined with Harry Boys to also win the doubles, coming back from 1-2 down in the final against the same local pair who had eliminated Algie and Boniface in the semi-finals.

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Off the Boat, Onto the Table

The team’s arrival in Australia was riddled with uncertainty and somewhat chaotic. They sailed on the vessel Mariposa on 1 September - a date etched indelibly in history as the day the German army invaded Poland and triggered World War II. News of this reached the team on the high seas when they heard re-broadcasts of speeches declaring war by British Prime Minister Chamberlain and King George. They immediately feared the tour may be in doubt. They were due in Sydney at 2 pm on 4 September but a storm at sea delayed them by five hours. A message awaited them on their arrival at 7 pm. The good news was that the tour was going ahead as planned despite the fact that both Australia and New Zealand were committed to support the British war effort. The “bad” news was that their first match was due to start at 8 pm – in just one hour.

Wharf restrictions prevented their hosts from meeting them at the gangway. The team had to fight through a throng of thousands to find a taxi which whisked them to the stadium where they arrived at exactly three minutes to eight. They were met, welcomed and ushered inside by a group of officials who had endured a long and anxious wait.

Thus began the tour.

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Praise in the Press

After the New Zealanders had played their first contest in Australia, beating New South Wales 13-7, the local press paid the ultimate compliment by comparing two of our players with Hungarian stars Bellak and Kelen. “Algie, whose backhand flick and topspin forehand is reminiscent of Hungarian Istvan Kelen,” wrote the Sun newspaper, “should go through the tour unbeaten.” And of Boys the paper wrote: “He’s a determined player with a Bellak-like variety of service, adroitly placed drop-shots and a penetrative forehand.”

The article continued: “The visitors had to make a dash from the boat by taxi, arriving at the hall right on time. But when the match commenced it was the home players who were “all at sea” against the brilliant visitors.”

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Hey Mr Selector! Don’t Forget the South Island

When the team to travel to Australia was finally announced not too much controversy was aroused, although a string of players just below selection level would no doubt have counted themselves unlucky to miss out.

On 22 July, weeks before the team was announced, an article in Wellington’s Sports Post speculated on the selector’s options and listed no fewer than thirteen players the paper considered to be in with a chance. Every one of them was from either Auckland or Wellington. The article included the following remarkable passage: “Unfortunately it is unlikely that South Island stars will receive much attention. The standard of play to the south does not yet measure to northern standards. The tours of Szabados and Kelen, and Barna and Bellak, have shown that the North Island standard is much higher.”

Didn’t the author know that Otago’s Don Miller had recently beaten Frank Paton, a former champion appearing near the top of the Sports Post list. Miller had also scored a creditable 15 and 15 against Viktor Barna last year. And what about Russell Algie?

Candidates for selection were nominated by their Associations and the trialists were selected from the nominations by Sole Selector, Keith Longmore,(pictured) who also would select the final team. In hindsight one wonders why Otago did not nominate Algie but it must be remembered that his surge to prominence (winning the 1939 NZ singles and doubles) had not yet occurred. It was only through the efforts of a keen Algie supporter who negotiated for NZTTA to bring him to Wellington that he even got to play in the trials. On arrival he was barely noticed with his slim build, unfamiliar bespectacled face and retiring demeanour. But after he had beaten Max Gosling and Evan Hughes, both strong contenders for the team, he suddenly became a major threat. His eventual selection alongside certainties Cantlay and Boys and the somewhat luckier Boniface (who had edged out the more favoured Hughes) proved to be the right decision when he won the NZ Championships and returned from Australia with the best playing record.

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Hungarian Tours - Could Have Been Three in a Row

Had our top players not travelled to Australia there could well have been a tour by Hungarian players in three successive years. Miklos Szabados and Istvan Kelen were in Australia prior to the New Zealanders’ arrival there and a visit by them to New Zealand had been scheduled for September. They decided, due to the absence of our top four players, to cancel the tour. Hungarian players had visited in 1937 and 1938.

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Algie Wins His First New Zealand Championship

The selection of young left-handed Otago player Russell Algie to play for New Zealand ahead of a whole raft of North Island players who had been favoured ahead of him finally drew the attention of the nation to his talent for the sport.

He had played table tennis at Waitaki Boys High School but his serious competitive play didn’t begin until he left school and joined Dunedin’s St Clair club in 1937 aged 16. His impact there was immediate and he improved so quickly that he was placed in A Grade for his first season of interclub. When in that same season he also won the Otago and Southland Championships it was very clear in the south, and should have been nationwide, that here we had a potential NZ champion. In 1938 he faced the Hungarian tourists and was singled out by Viktor Barna as this country’s best young prospect. Barna also suggested changes to his grip and to his game in general. It took some time for him to adapt to his new style but by mid-1939 he had the chance to demonstrate his talent in front of the national selector in the trials for the NZ team to visit Australia. He was selected, did well over there, and on his return could focus on his first New Zealand Championships, to be held for the first time in his home town.

The championships were something of an anticlimax. The best North Island players were expected to compete but eventually chose not to. The three selected for Australia would have had to travel to Dunedin, return to Auckland and sail immediately for the trip. Northerners George Corbett, Steve Henderson and 1935 champion Frank Paton all competed, maintaining the national status of the championships. 18 year old Russell Algie nonetheless had a relatively easy run through to the final where he met Frank Paton. Algie won the first two games, lost the third, then clinched the title with an easy 21-12 win in the fourth. He also combined with his older brother Afton to win the doubles. The Algie-dominated era had begun.

The closing stages of the women’s event were dominated by Otago players. While a number of top North Islanders didn’t travel south for the championships, the field nonetheless included future (1940) champion Pat Valk of Wellington. But it was a local player, Margaret Fogarty, who eventually prevailed. The name of Fogarty was destined for renown and extreme longevity in Otago and New Zealand table tennis – Margaret’s brother Bill would become NZ champion in 1948 and continue playing for many years, while several of Bill’s sons and daughters later excelled in the sport, particularly daughter Yvonne who would win a succession of NZ championship titles over a decade beginning in 1969.

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Remarkable Table Tennis Statistics Reported from Great Britain

Ahead of the 1939 English Championships, the sport was receiving generous lashings of publicity in Britain. In an article in the English “Listener”, WRG Smith presented some remarkable statistics to illustrate the growth of the game since its renaissance in the 1920s. “Some 5,000 people now make their living from table tennis activities in Great Britain alone,” he wrote. “In the last year more than eleven thousand tables have been manufactured. And a hundred thousand bats, and a million and a half balls. There are two hundred and fifty leagues operating with a hundred thousand registered players.” He went on to report that the finals of the English Championships would be staged at Wembley Stadium with seating for 10,000; earlier rounds would be played at the Royal Albert Hall and 90,000 spectators were expected in total.

These statistics were reproduced in a Timaru paper as part of their own extensive coverage of table tennis issues.

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Constitution to be Revised

With the rapid expansion of the sport in New Zealand NZTTA officials Arthur Meachen and Keith Longmore were allocated the task of revising the Constitution. The voting rights at meetings were to be laid down as proportional to each Association’s financial contribution, which in turn was related to their number of interclub teams. A range of other issues needed to be clarified or updated. A register of tutors (coaches) was to be drawn up and a new badge or logo designed. Refer illustration on left of page.

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Debate Over Dual Roles for TT Officers

This issue had raged controversially for several seasons. Some believed that anyone serving on the NZ management committee should not also serve on the committee of any district association due to conflict of interest. It was a long time before the matter was discussed formally but it was eventually put to the AGM. General opinion supported the contention that administrators should serve either at district level or national level but not both. Practical difficulties were foreseen – notably that districts would lose their best administrators, or that the national body would be deprived of potential administrative talent. No final decision was made this year but, amid charges of parochialism, the issue continued to simmer and would arise many more times in the future.

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NZ Represented at ITTF Meeting

After affiliating to the International Table Tennis Federation in 1937, New Zealand was represented at an ITTF General Meeting for the first time this year. Our representative was Mr H N Smith of England. From this point Australia and New Zealand had regular representation, initially by Mr Smith and later by Mr Corti Woodcock whose liaison work on our behalf was invaluable as New Zealanders began competing in the World Championships after the war.

 

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