Edwardians knew that sport was character building and made a man manly. One hundred years ago today, "Austral" of Sydney's Saturday Referee rejoiced that A. F. Wilding, a Wimbledon champion, a pillar of Australasia's tennis team, and an Adonis, was going to the war.
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"I have often maintained that the devotion to sport, which sometimes is deprecated as an interference with one's duties as a citizen, is one of the duties of every member of the country.
"If suddenly the country calls us, as it is calling us today, to fight its battles, then if we've been playing sport our bodily powers are well preserved and we can sustain the arduous toils of war with ease and a steadfast heart. We shall find when this disastrous war is brought to a close that the sportsmen of Great Britain and her colonies have been amongst the best of her fighters.
"I have therefore the greatest pleasure in the news that Anthony Wilding is going to use for his country the fine physique that tennis has kept to perfection.
"Of course Wilding is not only a tennis player. He has been an all-round athlete all his life. He played cricket for his NZ province, for Trinity College (Cambridge) and for Herefordshire. Also he has motorcycled from London to Constantinople. Amidst all that he found time also to become a lieutenant in the King's Colonials, and now we hear that he has been appointed a second lieutenant in thc Royal Marines."
Wilding, just 32, was killed in action in France in May 1915.
