100 years ago

General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, in an address at the close of the recent match on the Tottenham Hotspur football ground, said that as an old footballer he had enjoyed the game, which was a splendid one to watch, but when goals were scored he could not help thinking of our boys making charges into the enemy’s lines, and when the ball was kicked he thought of the cannon shot.

Belgium’s fate might be ours unless everyone did his share. When we had a million men we could do with another. Our boys were doing splendidly, but it was a case of three to one. Some of the wounded had been enjoying the game, and were getting well as quickly as possible to have another go at the enemy.

General Baden-Powell then formally opened the rifle range, which had been equipped at the expense of the Hotspur Club, and handed over to the Tottenham Rifle Club.

 

50 years ago

Yoshinori Sakai, a Japanese student born the day the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima, had lit the sacred Olympic flame at the spectacular opening of the 18th Olympiad in Tokyo.

Columns of competing athletes staged a giant parade, guns boomed out a salute and clouds of balloons rose into the air as the Games got under way. Emperor Hirohito read the opening announcement before the lone Japanese student entered the giant stadium and, watched by a packed crowd of 75,000, lit the flame which would burn throughout the coming two weeks.

Japanese gymnastic champion Takashi Ono took the Olympic oath of sportsmanship. Jets of the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force drew the five rings symbolic of the Olympic movement in coloured smoke above the stadium as the highlights of the opening ceremony ended. The 10,000 balloons, in the five Olympic colours of red, yellow, green, blue and black, were quickly wafted by the breeze out of the stadium.

 

25 years ago

A new survey had revealed that many swimmers in York thought the city’s baths were dirty. Fifteen percent of those questioned condemned the state of the changing rooms as “very poor” or “poor”.

The outsides of the Barbican pool received the same low rating from almost half of the swimmers, with one in ten thinking the same of Edmund Wilson baths and eight percent of Yearsley. Over three-quarters of respondents had not noticed any improvement since the council invested an extra £13,000 in cleaning time at the Barbican.

“Cleanliness is of overwhelming importance. These results show there is scope for improvement here,” said Mr Paul Chesmore, Leisure Services Director. He said the baths might be a victim of their success in increasing attendances by omore than 30 per cent in the past four years.