Top school-going athletes from around the Eastern Cape will descend on Grahamstown this weekend for the annual Hirsch Shield, Sammy Gunn and SF Edwards athletics meetings.
Top school-going athletes from around the Eastern Cape will descend on Grahamstown this weekend for the annual Hirsch Shield, Sammy Gunn and SF Edwards athletics meetings.
This year's events of the near century-old competition will be hosted on Lower Field at St Andrew’s College.
The Hirsch Shield is an open event, Sammy Gunn is for U14 athletes and SF Edwards is for U16 Athletes.
Schools competing tomorrow include St Andrew’s, Kingswood, Graeme, Grey High School, Queen’s College, Muir College, Hoerskool Grens, Dale College, Selborne College, Hoerskool Brandwag and Hudson Park High School.
Last year's Hirsch Shield and SF Edwards competitions were won by Queen’s College, with Selborne winning the Sammy Gunn event.
The Hirsch Shield competition was first held in Port Elizabeth in 1917 and was organised by the late S Panther who was a leading athletics administrator of the time. The late Clifford Harris of Gill College was one of the foundation members.
The early competition was limited to U19 athletes of any high school of the Eastern Province and Border. A shield was presented by the late JG Hirsch who was a very keen sportsman and a rugby Springbok.
The number of events was limited to 100 yards, 220 yards, 440 yards, 1 mile, 120 yards and hurdles (3 feet, 6 inches) races, as well as high jump, long jump and a cricket ball-throw.
The half-mile was introduced in 1920 and in 1930 shot put took the place of cricket ball-throw. Since then many events have been added to bring the meeting to full championship standard.
Buffer events were held to fill up the programme but these were later changed to include U16 events only. It was not until 1953 however, that the U16 competition was finally accepted.
In 1996 it was accepted that an U14 competition named after Sammy Gunn, who for many years served as secretary, would be introduced in 1997.
Schools taking part in 1917, as far as can be ascertained, were Marist Brothers, who won the competition, Grey, who was second, St Aidans, Muir, Gill, Dale and Selborne.
