Author(s): Gordon Slatter

Sports & Athletics | Secondhand | Christchurch City & Banks Peninsula

Lancaster Park in Christchurch has been the scene of, in Gordon Slatter's words, " many and varied occasions" - more varied and some more historic, some stranger than most sports fans realise today.

Gordon Slater has selected some of the most memorable, the most historic, the strangest, the funniest and the saddest, and writes of them with a keen sense of occassion.

In each case Gordon Slatter describes in detail the styles and personalities of the people who provided these great days: the artistic temperament of Dr Otto Peltzer, the middle-distance runner and cosmopolitian sociologist; the cheery balloonist who met his death after an ascent from the Park, and his dutiful bride; the easy grace of All-India's hockey marvel, Dhyan Chand; how English cyclist, Fred Wood, stimulated the sport in New Zealand; how Peter Snell ran a world-record half-mile in 1962; the coach who devised the strategy that enabled a South Island soccer team to beat the crack Austrian touring side and amaze almost everyone.