The 16 September 1979 was the final day of the 23rd Ryder Cup series of matches, held at the Greenbrier Golf Course in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
It was the start of a new era for the Ryder Cup, when players from continental Europe took part in the Ryder Cup for the first time, replacing Great Britain and Ireland as the opposition to the United States. It was hoped the change would raise the profile of the event and end the near total domination by the United States,
However, the United States won the competition
easily by a score of 17 to 11 points.
Jack Nicklaus, age 39, failed to make the team for the first time since becoming eligible in 1969, and Tom Watson withdrew the day before the competition for the birth of his first child.
The Ryder Cup is a match play event, with each match worth one point. The competition format was similar to the formats used from 1963 through 1975, but with fewer singles matches.
TEAMS:
USA: Billy Casper [non-playing captain]; Gil Morgan; Hubert Green; Larry Nelson; John Mahaffey; Tom Kit; Lee Trevino; Hale Irwin; Lanny Wadkins; Andy Bean; Fuzzy Zoeller; Lee Elder; Mark Hayes.
Europe: John Jacobs [non playing captain] [ Eng]; Seve Ballesteros [Spain]; Mark James [Eng]; Brian Barnes [Scot]; Bernard Gallacher [Scot]; Sandy Lyle [Scot]; Ken Brown [Scot]; Antonio Garrido [Spain]; Tony Jacklin [Eng]; Michael King [Eng]; Nick Faldo [Eng]; Des Smyth [Ire]; Peter Oosterhuis [Eng].
RESULTS: All matches were played to a maximum of 18 holes.
Day 1 – 4 four-ball better ball matches in the morning – USA 3 – Europe 1
Day 1 – 4
foursome matches in the afternoon – USA 2 ½ – Europe 1 ½
Day 2 – 4
foursome matches in the morning – USA 1 – Europe 3
Day 2 – 4
four-ball matches in the afternoon – USA 2 – Europe 2
Day 3 – 12
singles matches – USA 8 ½ – Europe 3 ½ [6
each in morning and afternoon sessions]
RESULT: USA 17 – Europe 11
On returning home Mark James and Ken Brown received fines for ‘unprofessional conduct’ of £1,500 and £1,000 respectively, and were banned from international duty for 12 months.
On the 15 September 1879, the Scottish professional golfer, ‘Alec’ Ross was born in Dornoch, Scotland. Ross learned his golf in Scotland, but like many golfers of his era spent many years working as a club professional in the United States.
Alec Ross
While working at the Brae Burn Country Club, Boston, he won the 1907 US Open Championship at the St. Martin’s course at Philadelphia Cricket Club. He competed in the U.S. Open 17 times in total, and finished in the top-10 five times.
Alec was also the professional at the Detroit GC,
Michigan for 31 years.
His 16 professional tournament wins include the North and South Open 6 times (1902, 1904, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1915), the Massachusetts Open 6 times (1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912) and the Swiss Open 3 times (1923, 1925, 1926).
Ross’s older brother Donald also moved to the US and became one of the most celebrated of all golf course designers.
On the 14 September, 1956, former footballer and coach Ray Wilkins, MBE was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex (1956 -2018).
Ray Wilkins, MBE
Born into a footballing family, his father and three brothers were also involved in the game. Wilkins early career was with the Sunday League team Senrab that play in Wanstead Flats, East London. A midfielder, Wilkins began his career at Chelsea as an apprentice. He made his first team debut in 1973 against Norwich City at the age of 17, as a substitute in a 3–0 home league win. Wilkins was appointed captain at the age of 18, retaining the role for four years.
In 1979, Wilkins signed for Manchester United for a fee of £825,000, the highest fee received for a Chelsea player at the time. He scored 10 goals in his 5 years with the Red Devils, and was voted player of the year by the team’s supporters at the end of the 1983–1984 season. His midfield performances drew the attention of A.C. Milan, who made United a £1.5 million offer for the player.
Wilkins signed with A.C. Milan in summer 1984. In his first year Wilkins played 28 Serie A games and won a runner-up medal in the Coppa Italia. He signed for Paris Saint-Germain in the middle of 1987, but this proved to be short-lived as he failed to break into the team. So he eagerly signed for Rangers for £250,000, where he won two league titles and one Scottish League Cup.
The longest stint of his late career was at Queens Park Rangers, for whom he was a regular first team player from November 1989 to 1994. Wilkins left QPR on a free transfer to join Crystal Palace as a player-coach, but only made one appearance due to breaking his left foot on his debut.
Wilkins played for four different clubs in the 1996–1997 season. One game at Wycombe Wanderers before moving to Hibernian for a 16-game stint. Toward the end of the season he played 3 times for Millwall in the Second Division and 3 Third Division games for Leyton Orient before retiring.
Wilkins scored three goals in 84 games for England, captained the team on 10 occasions, and played at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. He was called up to play for England for the first time in 1976 by coach Don Revie, and made his debut a 3–2 win over Italy at the U.S.A. Bicentennial Cup Tournament in New York.
Wilkins made his 84th and final England appearance in November 1986, against Yugoslavia.
After his playing career he worked as a television pundit, and as a coach and manager with Queens Park Rangers, Fulham and Chelsea. He also managed Jordan at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, and his last coaching job was as assistant manager of Aston Villa later that year.
In 2013, he was stopped whilst driving and found to be nearly four times over the legal alcohol limit. In 2016, Wilkins admitted he was an alcoholic, after being given a four-year ban for drink driving.
In 2018, Wilkins had a cardiac arrest and died at the age of 61.
On the 13 September 1866, the Scottish professional golfer, Willie Park, Sr. (1833-1903), won the 7th Open Championship by two shots, from his brother Davie Park. Played in a strong wind.
Willie Park, Senior
Willie Park, one of 16 competitors at the Prestwick Golf Club, set the pace with a score of 54. In the second round his score of 56 extended his lead, and after a final round of 59, set a useful target of 169. Davie Park’s final round of 56 gave him a total of 171 and second place. It was Park Senior’s third of four wins in the Open Championship.
Leader Board: 1: Willie Park Senior, Scotland,
54-56-59-169 – £ 6.00; 2: Davie Park, Scotland, 58-57-56-171 – £ 3,00; 3:
Robert Andrew, Scotland, 58-59 59-176 £ 2.00; 4: Tom Morris Sr, Scotland
61-58-59-178
Born in Wallyford, East Lothian, Park started out as a caddie, and later ran a golf equipment manufacturing business. On the course, he made money from ‘challenge matches’, the most popular form of spectator golf in his era, against rivals such as Old Tom Morris, Willie Dunn and Allan Robertson,
On the 12 September 1913, British and South African soldier and cricketer, Robert Burnard Stewart died in Cala, Cape Province, South Africa, aged 57 (1856-1913).
Born in Azamgarh, in the United Provinces of India, Stewart played in South Africa’s first Test match in 1889. He was educated at Wellington College in England, where he captained the First XI.
He served as an officer with the British Army in South Africa, and represented King William’s Town in the Champion Bat Tournament. In the 1879-80 tournament he was the leading batsman; in the low-scoring final, scoring a century and taking seven wickets in King William’s Town’s innings victory over the team from Port Elizabeth. In the next Champion Bat Tournament, in 1884-85, he top-scored for King William’s Town in all three matches.
When the English team toured South Africa in 1888–1889 Stewart played against the tourists in two matches for Cape Colony, the Cape Mounted Rifles, and Eastern Province. He was one of the few local batsmen to reach double figures in these matches, although his highest score was only 25, which was also the top score in Eastern Province’s first innings.
Stewart played in the Test match that followed the Eastern Province match a few days later. As it was the first match in South Africa to be considered first-class, he and all his team-mates made their first-class and Test debuts in the same match. It was Stewart’s only first-class match. He batted at number eight and made 4 and 9, and took two catches.
On the 11 September 1890, theEnglish amateur golfer, John Ball Jr. (1861-1940), became first amateur to win the Open Championship, at Prestwick GC, beating Willie Fernie and Archie Simpson by 3 strokes.
John Ball
Ball was born in Hoylake, Cheshire, his father was the owner of the Royal Hotel, located near the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Ball grew up playing golf on the links at Hoylake, and learned the game competing against Harold Hilton. In 1878, at the age of 16, he competed in his first Open Championship and finished fourth at Prestwick.
Ball dominated amateur golf in Great Britain, his run of amateur titles stretching from 1888 to 1912, when he was 51 years old. His best year came in 1890, when he won both the Amateur and the Open Championship with a score of 82-82 – 164. Bobby Jones is the only other golfer to win the two tournaments in the same year.
After winning The Amateur Championship in 1888, Ball subsequently won a record eight titles in all in 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907, 1910, and 1912, in addition to two runner-up finishes. Ball also won four Irish Amateur titles, and was also runner-up in the 1892 Open Championship, finishing three strokes behind Harold Hilton.
Ball was a shy, modest man who went about his
business with stubborn determination that made him a lion in match play.
Ball served his country during the Second Boer War, and died in Holywell, Wales, in 1940.
He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1977.
On the 10 September 1995, one of the greatest of the early women cricketers, Mary ‘Molly’ Edith Hide (1913-1995) died in Guildford, Surrey, aged 81.
Molly Hide
Molly Hide was born in Shanghai, China and came to England at the age of six. She learned to play cricket at the girls’ school of Wycombe Abbey, and later studied agriculture at Reading University. She went on to captain the England women’s team, for 17 years.
Molly represented Worcestershire in 1932-1933, and toured Australia and New Zealand with Betty Archdale’s first English women touring team, scoring a century in the Christchurch Test, when England defeated New Zealand in a one-sided match.
A quick scoring right-handed batsman, who bowled medium-paced off-spinners, Hide was given the captaincy of the South of England team in 1936 and, a year later, the England team against the touring Australian women. The series ended 1-1, Hide’s major contribution was 5 for 20 in the second innings at Blackpool where England won by 25 runs.
During World War II, she worked in her father’s farm in Haslemere. Test cricket resumed after 11 years with a tour of Australia which England lost 0-1. Hide scored 63 & 124 not out in the drawn match at Sydney. She scored five hundreds in the tour, including one in Colombo. She also captained England at home against Australia in 1951 and New Zealand in 1954
Molly was a dual international, since in her youth,
she also played lacrosse for England.
Hide never married. In 1973 she was president of the Women’s Cricket Association.
On the 9 September 1853, arguably Australia’s finest bowler of the 19 century, Fred Spofforth, was born in the Sydney suburb of Balmain.
Fred Spofforth
The son of Yorkshire-born Edward Spofforth, a bank clerk, and his wife Anna, née McDonnell. Spofforth spent his early childhood in Hokianga, New Zealand and was later educated privately at the Reverend John Pendrill’s Eglinton House on Glebe Road and, for a short time, at Sydney Grammar School.
He was later employed by the Bank of New South Wales as a clerk.
He was the first to take 50 Test wickets, and the first man to take a Test hat-trick in 1879, when Lord Harris‘ England team played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, dismissing Vernon Royle, Francis MacKinnon and Tom Emmett in three successive deliveries.
He played in Test matches for Australia from 1877-1887, and then settled in England where he played for Derbyshire.
He began his cricketing life as a bowler of under-arm lobs, but changed his style when he saw the English quick bowlers on tour of the colonies in 1863-1864. He decided to pursue the overarm action, and spent years mastering it. Spofforth first became noticed playing for New South Wales, aged 18, when he established a reputation.for his bowling.
Spofforth played his first Test match in 1877 in Melbourne, in the 2nd match of the first-ever Test series, against the English team led by James Lillywhite, Jr., which England won by four wickets.
In 1878, in the 2nd match of the
Australian tour against the MCC at Lord’s, the MCC was dismissed twice in one
day for scores of 33 and19. The Aussies won by 9 wickets, with Spofforth
picking up 10 for 20, after first clean-bowling Grace for a duck.
During the tour Spofforth was credited with 110
wickets at under 11 runs, and a batting average of 13 from 28 innings.
As a consequence of this victory, Spofforth became known as ‘The Demon Bowler’, a title which first adorned John ‘Foghorn’ Jackson in the 1850s. He was the bowler whom English batsmen most feared and is also regarded as the one who first brought into the game, as a scaring technique, eye-to-eye contact with the batsman. Spofforth would often stare straight into the batsman’s eyes to scare and shake him.
The ‘Demon Bowler’
A technique which worked particularly well in the match that gave birth to the Ashes series at The Oval in 1882. In their second innings, England required a 85 runs to clinch the match, but Spofforth refused to give up, and led the team to one of the closest victories in the history of Test cricket. The Australians won by 7 runs, with Spofforth taking 14 for 90.
Although not
noted as a batsman, he once top-scored in a Test from the unlikely starting
position of number eleven. He hit 50 against England at Melbourne in 1884–1885,
the next-highest score by an Australian in the match was 35.
Fred Spofforth played his last Test match in Sydney in 1887 in which he bowled 12 overs, conceded 17 runs and for one wicket. England won the match by 13 runs.
In 1888 Spofforth settled in Derbyshire. Yorkshire waived the 2 years’ residential qualification, so that he could play 2 matches for the Derbyshire CCC in 1889 season. Spofforth. In one of these games he took 15 Yorkshire wickets for 81 runs. Spofforth captained the side in 1890.
Derbyshire was found to be in deep financial crisis and Spofforth played a key part in identifying a fraud that had been committed. The cricket club’s losses amounted to £1000 and the Derby County Football Club had also been raided. Samuel Richardson the club’s first captain had become an administrator of the club in 1880, and in 1884 the remit had been extended to the associated Derby County Football Club. Richardson admitted his guilt and fled the country in disgrace and settled in Madrid.
In 1896, Spofforth, playing for MCC aged 43, taking 8 wickets for 74 against Yorkshire. He also played club cricket for Hampstead for some years.
He went into business as a tea-merchant and became the managing director of the Star Tea Company.
Spofforth died from chronic colitis, on the eve of the 1926 Ashes series, at Long Ditton, Surrey. He left a fortune of £164,000.
In 1996 he was posthumously included in the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame as one of 10 inaugural inductees. A sculpture of Spofforth was unveiled at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2008. And in 2011, he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.
On the 8 September 1980, the Australian Test cricketer Bruce Dooland died in Bedford Park, South Australia. Dooland played in 3 Tests for Australia during the late 1940s.
Bruce Dooland
Born in Cowandilla, South Australia in 1923, during WW2 Dooland was in an
Australian Commando unit serving in the South Pacific.
After the war, he played Sheffield Shield cricket for South Australia and took the first post-war hat-trick in Australia. A right-hand batsman and leg-break bowler, he was called up for the third Test in Melbourne against England in 1947, and took 4 wickets for 69 runs and 1 for 84. More importantly he held up one end while Colin McCool made his maiden Test century. He was kept for the fourth Test in Melbourne and defended stoutly while Keith Miller made his maiden Test century.
His Test career ended in 1948 against India, but in 1950–1951 He toured India with the Commonwealth team.
Dooland came to England and played initially in the Lancashire League, before qualifying by residence to play for Nottinghamshire. Dooland was the first overseas import brought in specifically to strengthen the Nottinghamshire team when it was at a low ebb. Playing from 1953 to 1957, he scored 4,782 runs and took 770 wickets, completing the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season. He took 16 for 83 in the match against Essex at Trent Bridge in 1954, and his total of 181 wickets for Nottinghamshire that season remains the club’s record. Following his departure, Nottinghamshire had their worst-ever period in terms of results.
Dooland played twice for the Players in the Gentlemen v Players match, and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1955.
He also played baseball for the West Torrens Baseball Club and was regarded as one of the best pitchers in his state, and represented Australia at baseball as well as cricket.
On the 7 September 1956, the renowned English sportsman, politician, diplomat, academic, teacher, writer, editor and publisher, Charles Burgess Fry, died aged 84 [1872-1956].
C.B. Fry
Fry was born in Croydon, the son of a civil servant, his family had once been wealthy, but by 1872 were no longer prosperous. After winning a scholarship, Fry was educated at Repton School and then at Wadham College, Oxford. Fry played for the under 16 Repton football team aged thirteen. Then went on to captain the school’s cricket and football teams, and also won prizes for athletics. At the age of sixteen he played for the Casuals in the F.A. Cup.
Known as C.B. Fry, he is best remembered for his career as a cricketer. Although Fry’s list of sporting achievements include, representing England at both cricket and football, an FA Cup Final appearance for Southampton F.C., and equalling the world record for the long jump.
Apart from all this, Fry was also a decent shot putter, hammer thrower, and ice skater. Representing Wadham in the inter-College races in the winter of 1894–1895, Fry came close to an unofficial Blue as a member of the Oxford team who took on Cambridge on the Fens. He was also a proficient golfer. He is also reputed to have turned down the throne of Albania.
Fry won a further scholarship to study at Wadham College, Oxford, where he won a university Blue in football, cricket and athletics, but narrowly failed to win a Blue in rugby union, because of an injury.
Fry played for Surrey in 1891, but not in first-class fixtures, Oxford University 1892–1895, Sussex 1894–1908, and Hampshire 1909–1921. He was first selected by England for the tour of South Africa in 1895-1896, and captained England in his final six Test matches, winning four and drawing two. He twice scored Test centuries: 144 v Australia in 1905, hitting 23 fours in just over 3½ hours, batting at number four, and 129 opening the batting against South Africa in 1907.
A highly effective right-handed batsman, Fry scored 30,886 first-class runs at an average of 50.22, a particularly high figure for an era when scores were generally lower than today. He headed the batting averages for six English seasons (1901, 1903, 1905, 1907, 1911 and 1912).
Fry scored 94 first-class centuries, including six
consecutive centuries in 1901. He made his highest first-class score of 258 not
out in 1911.
In his early career Fry was an enthusiastic and successful right-arm fast-medium bowler.
Fry later commentated on cricket matches, and was called ‘one of the most eloquent cricket commentators of all time.’
During his time at Oxford Fry had accumulated disturbingly large debts, and in his final term suffered a mental breakdown. His indebtedness provides an explanation for his acceptance of an offer to do some nude modelling. These financial problems combined with his mother being seriously ill, placed an unbearable strain on him, and in the summer of 1895, Fry found himself saddled with mounting debts, and no way with which to repay them. Cricket came to his rescue when he was offered the chance to tour South Africa as a member of Lord Hawke’s 1895–1896 England touring party.
John Arlott described him with the words, ‘Charles Fry could be autocratic, angry and self-willed. He was also magnanimous, extravagant, generous, elegant, brilliant, and fun … he was probably the most variously gifted Englishman of any age.’
Fry’s achievements also extended to association football. Fry learned his football at Repton School. While still at school he also played for the famous amateur club the Casuals, for whom he found himself turning out in an FA Cup tie at the age of sixteen. Fry won Blues in each of his four years at Oxford University In 1891, he joined the famous amateur club, the Corinthians, making 74 appearances for them between 1891-1903. Fry joined Southampton FC as a professional, and also because The Dell was conveniently close to his home. He made his debut for Southampton in December 1900, against Tottenham Hotspur.
Fry achieved his aim of international honours when, along with Southampton’s goalkeeper, Jack Robinson, he was picked to play as a full-back for England in the match against Ireland in 1901.
The following season (1901–1902), Southampton reached the FA Cup Final, against Sheffield United, the match was drawn 1–1, but Southampton lost the replay, 2–1. Fry made 25 first-team appearances for Southampton, and then joined local rivals Portsmouth, making his debut for them in 1903. Fry made three appearances for Portsmouth before retiring from football due to injury.
Fry won Blues in athletics, at Oxford 1892–1895, representing the University against Cambridge in the long jump (1892, 1893, 1894 and 1895) the high jump in 1892, and the 100 yards in 1893 and 1894 . In 1892 Fry broke the British long jump record with a jump of 23 feet 5 inches, and a year later equaled the world long jump record of 23 feet 6 1⁄2.
Fry was also president of the Oxford University
athletics club in 1894.
Fry played rugby union for Oxford University, narrowly missing out on a Blue in his final year due to injury. He made ten appearances for Blackheath, and three appearances for the Barbarians.
In 1896 Fry took up a teaching position at Charterhouse, later moving on to a successful and much more lucrative career in journalism.
In 1898, Fry married Beatrice Holme Sumner, who was
ten years his senior, and was reckoned to be ‘a cruel and domineering woman’, who Fry ‘lived in fear of for the duration of their marriage’.
Fry had been interested in politics since his time
at Wadham College, admitting, ‘I take a
great interest in heaps of things that I know nothing about … politics
for one’.
He unsuccessfully stood as Liberal candidate for parliament for the Brighton constituency in 1922. Winning 22,059 votes, 4,785 fewer than the Conservative victor, the Rt Hon. George Clement Tryon, Unionist. He later fought the seat of Banbury in 1923, losing by just 219 votes, and the Oxford by-election in 1924, where he was defeated by 1,842 votes.
Fry suffered mental health problems In later life, but well into his seventies, it is said he was still able to leap from a stationary position backwards onto a mantelpiece !
His ashes were buried in the graveyard of Repton Parish Church, next to Repton School’s Priory. In 2008, his grandson, Jonathan Fry (chairman of the governors at Repton), was in attendance at the rededication of Fry’s grave, which was inscribed with, ‘1872 C B Fry 1956. Cricketer, scholar, athlete, Author – The Ultimate All-rounder’.
