spikes

The current Waterford Athletic Club was not founded until 1923 but the city had a record of athletic achievement stretching back many years. This is an extract from the clubs website. "From its earliest days Waterford Athletic Club had its fair share of famous sports people as an examination of its first officers illustrates. The President was the famed G.A.A. referee Willie Walsh, one of the giants of the early years of that association. The vice President was Peter O'Connor, double Olympic medallist in the 1906 Games where he won gold in the triple jump with 14.08m and silver in the long jump with 7.02m. After his final attempt victory in the triple jump, O'Connor (who had been forced by political considerations to compete for Great Britain) climbed the flagpole, pulled down the Union Jack and replaced it with the green flag of Ireland."

The shed in the background appears in some of Pooles other photos such as this one POOLEIMP 272A It looks to me like it's probably taken in the peoples park by the Goff cycle track. There is a building marked on the old 25" Ordnance Survey map that is no longer there. maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,661104,611974,7,9

Peter O'Connor mentions the Goff Track in this piece, "The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was to take up residence in Waterford … I had the advantage of training with those excellent athletes … including E. W. Clyne, J. Curry, Frank Furlong and others. I may indeed, gentlemen, attribute the greater portion of my success in the athletic arena to my having come to live in Waterford. For years I have been hovering around record figures but bad luck haunted me. My jumps were always a wee bit short of the mark and, when over the mark as they were on several occasions, the ground failed to stand the test of the spirit level, which is absolutely essential before any credence is given to any jumps. I would have disappeared and chucked athletics altogether, were it not for three reasons, viz., 1st. The kindness of my employer, Mr. David Dunford, Solicitor, in permitting me to attend all the main athletic meetings in the South of Ireland, in a greater part of Leinster and elsewhere. 2nd. I found splendid facilities in Waterford for training - Waterpark College grounds for the long jump and the Goff track for sprinting. This track is the finest track in Ireland for cycling and sprinting. 3rd. I received every encouragement in the flattering and undeserved articles from the pen of my good and true friend, Mr. Redmond, in his excellent paper - the Waterford News." waterfordireland.tripod.com/peter_o'connor.htm

Excellent piece Paul, It shows how the athlete benefitted from good will and good fortune. Well done Waterford.

Swordscookie Paul O'Farrell And lookie here - who's that but Peter O'Connor, Irish Olympic and Waterford athlete...

es interesante

Typically, a multi-stemmed shrub to 3 m tall, bearing a lignotuber. It grows mostly north of Sydney on the central and north coast subdivisions, extending onto the central and northern tablelands. It is widespread in heath and dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, usually on sandy soils and sandstone outcrops but may also occur on other soil types. The leaves are alternate, linear to oblanceolate, to 10 cm long and only 1 cm wide, green to dark green in colour and are toothed uniformly for most of their length. The lower surface is paler and hairy. The inflorescences of banksias are generally referred to as spikes or a spike-like structure that consists of fused racemes of paired flowers (hence it gets referred to as a conflorescence). There can be 100s of flowers in each spike. The flowers of banksias have 4 tepals (petals or sepals) in a tubular formation, 4 anthers hidden inside, and an elongated carpel (female part) where the style and extends outwards forming the edge of the spike (somewhat similar to individual grevillea and hakea flowers). In this species, the spikes are generally 15 cm long (sometimes longer) and about 6 cm wide, with each flower thin but up to 3 cm long, orange to yellow-orange in colour. The styles (female part of the flower) can be a vivid dark red to purple-black and hooked at the apex (very similar to B. spinulosa). The spike then turns into a cone-like structure of follicles; a fruit that splits open on one side. Each follicle has one or two-winged seeds which is actually a fruit in itself called a samara. The follicles can take a long time to mature and open, usually needing a fire. Each “cone” can produce a fair amount of seed with this species having up to 100 follicles per “cone”, each up to 25 mm long. Source: resources.austplants.com.au/plant/banksia-collina/

I had no idea this game used to involve actual wheelbarrows. When did wheelbarrow races change to using children walking on their hands?

Well, they probably phased out the barrows after the first several bloody impalements on those rigid slalom spikes . . . .

Probably phased out when people no longer owned wheelbarrows!