Sport

"I do not like the WIMBLEDON CROWDS!"
—says Dick Campbell
I have come to the regretful conclusion that. I do not like the Wimbledon crowds.
Admittedly our representatives did not cover themselves with glory, but I give them credit for doing their best.
No one seemed to accept the obvious — that second-rate performers cannot hope to overcome superior protagonists.
None the less, a pertinent question should be asked. Why can America produce champions year after year
at lawn tennis, while England has had one first-class player since the war ?
Encouragement Needed
Is it training, opportunity or " guts " that is lacking ? I have an idea it is encouragement that is needed. As a nation we do not seem to approve of successful games players. Perry, who succeeded in spite of everything, had be submit to a campaign of calumny that might have broken many a man's spirit.
Unfortunatela, Fred Perrys are few and far between. Yet last week I heard a well-known tennis big-wig express his satisfaction that Perry was not playing.
Incredible, you might say . . . but go and study lawn tennis crowds, and you will not be so surprised.
sr*
HENRI' COTTON
The case of Henry Cotton and the golf world is a little different. Cotton to-day is an idol, but there was a time when his name was likewise mud. Not so much amongst the general public as amongst his fellow professionals.
After all, any fool can display his or her person at a tennis match, and take a reasonably intelligent interest in what is more or less a simple game— but little or no enjoyment can be
obtained from watching even the finest of golfers unless the spectator has at least a working knowledge of the game.
A Menace
Cotton, to the public, was just a golfer. To the pros he was a menace. They could not realise that by hard work and the use of his brain he was doing more to prove that the golf pro. was far removed from being a glorified caddy. They feared that in their efforts to follow in his footsteps they would be ridiculed.
To-day, of course, British golf is at a high level, and still rising. There are a score of first-class players, all good enough to win the American Open Championship if only they would make the attempt. Henry Cotton is the reason for this. He is the rock on which British golf, both amateur and professional, has been rebuilt. By stimulating competition he has brought out the best in his fellow pros, and now results are showing.
" Bad Form "
Unfortunately, since the honest-togoodness tennis professional is regarded as something lower than a boot boy by the L.T.A., while his dishonest shamateur brother is adulated to the skies, there is no real hope of any revival in the English standard.
It is just a repetition of the old English custom . . . regarding ultrakeenness as rather " bad form."