Fitness and Wellbeing in Sportspages’ New Stock Catalogue

Our most recent New Stock catalogue has a huge range of sports as usual. It also has quite a fine line in rare and classic fitness and wellbeing books too. Any of them should help you get ready for the summer!

One of the most direct of the fitness and wellbeing books is ‘Be Fit or Be Damned!’ – published in 1968: the title betrays the not so touchy feely approach to getting fitter:  It’s written by the highly regarded spoott rts coach, Percy Cerutty, who trained Herb Elliot and John Landy among others.

Another title is by Walter George, one of the most foremost athletes of the Victorian era and holder of the World mile record that lasted for 30 years. The 100-Up Exercise is a rare book, published in 1913. It details George’s amazing career and describes his pioneering training methods, including – of course – the famous 100-Up exercise!

An even earlier tome on fitness and wellbeing is Eugen Sandow’s book on bodybuilding. The celebrated Edwardian Strongman’s book is scarce and was published c. 1904. He manages to relate his then recent tour of Australasia AND shares his philosophy and systems of fitness and bodybuilding along with recommending a series of exercises.

If you feel like the above books are not ‘talking to you’, we have one final peach that all of us should be fighting to buy: Old Age: its Cause and Prevention.  Sandford Bennett, the man, who rolled back time and ‘grew young at 70’ clearly has something to teach us about fitness and wellbeing. Witness his transformation – and how he did it – throughout the book, starting with the frontispiece. That shows him at 50 (apparently), while the front cover shows him at 70. We can only assume this book flew off the shelves when it was published in 1912:

Sportspages’ New Stock catalogue

This quirky, 1930s Hungarian table tennis postcard is in our newest New Stock catalogue: https://www.sportspages.com/catalogue/new-stock-58  along with over 100 other items from nearly as many sports. Our catalogues come out regularly: don’t miss them by signing up for them on the bottom of our home page!

The Australian Cricket team in England

Graham Thorpe RIP: one of our Farnham local heroes

Good luck to all the runners in the London Marathon!

A new sport for the New Year: Bumble puppy!

Calling time on Just Fontaine – a French football legend, RIP

We love discovering sports memorabilia with great stories. Recently we acquired one of Just Fontaine’s commemorative watches, which fills exactly that brief.

The wristwatch is inscribed to dial “Just Fontaine. World Record 13 goals 1958-1998”. Fontaine, French football legend, presented one of these watches to each of the twenty two members of the French 1958 World Cup Squad  to commemorate his extraordinary record of scoring 13 goals in one World Cup tournament, including 4 against the defending champions, West Germany. In case you’re wondering, Pele scored 12 over 4 World Cup tournaments. So far, no one has bettered Fontaine’s record. Fontaine’s debut for France in 1953 gave a few clues as to what he might achieve, three to be exact – the 20 year old scored a hat trick against Luxembourg, ending in a meaty 8-0 score.

Subsequently Fontaine presented his dedicated watches to his former teammates after the Final of the 1998 World Cup at the Dinner Banquet. Upon receipt of their watches, each member exchanged with another team mate. Maryan Wisniewski swapped with his room mate Jean Vincent – Wisniewski’s World Cup shirt number was ’22’ and Vincent’s ’21’. The watch we have is number ’21’, engraved to verso. The details of all Fontaine’s thirteen goals are also inscribed to verso. A handwritten letter from Wisniewski (written in French) explains the history of the watch.

Sporting Legends we have lost

When we sent out our first New Stock Catalogue of the year, we realised it had been a while – too long! – since our last one in September. We reflected on the sporting legends we had lost just since September – way too many. We thought we’d like to make at least brief mention of a few of them here.

They come from so many different sports – boxing’s Gerrie Coetzee from South Africa, formula one’s Patrick Tambay from France and our own horse racing commentator, John Hanmer to name a few. Sadly they were joined by Ryder Cup golfer, Barry Lane, cricket’s Robin Marlar and Jeremy Lloyds, and David English, who raised £14 million for charity through the Bunbury Cricket Club. We lost Maurice Norman, part of the Double-winning Tottenham Hotspur team of 1960-61 and Brian Robinson too, the first British cyclist to finish the Tour de France AND win a Tour Stage.

Two great titans of rugby left us too: David Duckham and Doddie Weir. Duckham gained 36 England caps and was part of the revered British Lions squad, who beat the seemingly undefeatable All Blacks in 1971. Scotland’s Doddie Weir also starred with with the British Lions before he was tragically diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2016. By the time he left us in November, his foundation had raised £8 million for MND research.

All these sportsmen were tremendous and we are honoured to remember them. They were also joined by 3 huge sporting legends: England’s World Cup star, George Cohen, Italy’s Gianluca Vialli and Brazil’s incomparable Pele.

George Best called England World Cup winner, George Cohen, “The best full-back I ever played against”. Cohen spent his entire career in football at Fulham. One could almost describe Gianluca Vialli and Cohen as footballing ‘neighbours’.  Vialli  was an extremely talented footballer, who played for Italy in 2 World Cups. It was arguably at Fulham’s neighbouring club, Chelsea, however, that he left his most indelible stamp. As a beloved player-manager, he helped Chelsea win the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Cup Winners’ Cup.

All of these sportsmen have been phenomenal throughout their respective sporting careers…but when it comes to sporting legends, it is hard for anyone to come close to the late and great Pele. He began his professional career at 15 and made his international debut a year later. He won 3 World Cups as a player over a 14 year international career. In 1999 a poll of Ballon d’Or winners voted him player of the century. He was. We salute him and we salute them all.

Uruguay World Cup Football 1930

King Charles III and Cricket

We have been contemplating the huge job in front of King Charles III. We reminded ourselves what an able man he has shown himself to be over the years. Us being us, we looked to sport for the clues. We all know what a great polo player and general equestrian he was. We’ve seen him skiing, sailing, windsurfing and fishing. Less well known was his success on the cricket field.

Following in his father, the Duke of Edinburgh’s footsteps, Charles was an enthusiastic and able cricketer. In 1971 he arrived on horseback, all padded up for a cricket match at Cranwell in Lincolnshire.  Prince Charles was in an RAF team against the Lord’s Taverners.  He batted gamely and scored 17 runs but was bowled by the recently retired Surrey and England cricketing legend, Ken Barrington. Undeterred Prince Charles returned to the crease to bowl 7 overs and wreaked revenge on Ken Barrington by bowling him out.

We wish the new King continued success, going forward. Is it a sign of the power he might have that England won a Test series against South Africa two days into the start of his new reign?!