'Happy' Sullivan at front of NZ's rowing legacy
Possibly NZ's first great sports coach
As New Zealand attempts to add to its rich legacy of Olympic rowing success, it is worth asking, 'Who was the first New Zealander to coach a crew to an Olympic Games gold medal?'
Here's a clue: He was a rare breed. He played three rugby games for Wellington on the wing, was an amateur rowing champion in New Zealand, and was a member of the Wellington Rowing Club team that won consecutive national championships in fours, pairs, doubles, and singles. Making the leap to professionalism, he won the New Zealand, Australasian, and British professional single sculls titles and came within three feet of winning the world championship of sculling.
The man in question was Tom 'Happy' Sullivan, a figure whose impact on New Zealand's sporting history is indelible, if unappreciated.
Tom Sullivan, NZ, Australasia and England single sculling champion
He represented Wellington in the 1888 rugby season, playing against A.E. Stoddart's touring British side.
He was named New Zealand's amateur rowing champion in 1889 and took the New Zealand professional title from Charles Stephenson on the Parramatta River in 1891. He was never challenged for the title, which Billy Webb resurrected in 1906.
After winning the Australasian championship in 1892, Sullivan lost his bid for the world championship when Jim Stanbury held him off. Travelling to England, he won the British sculling championship in 1893, beating George Bubear. He held the title until 1895, when losing to Wag Harding.
In 1894, the great English sportsman C.B. Fry named him one of the Athletes of the Year in The Strand magazine.
The English championship of the sculling world could have no better holder than Tom Sullivan. That perhaps may sound somewhat ambiguous, yet when the geniality of the man himself, his unfailing good humour and good nature, and, more than all, the thorough sportsman-like character of which he is possessed are considered, it will be admitted that we are justified in our assertion. Born at Auckland, New Zealand, in September [18], 1868, Sullivan is now in his 27th year. He stands 6ft 1in in height, measures 42in round the chest, and, when fit and well, his rowing weight is 11st 12lb. He first started sculling at 13 years of age, and in 1888 he met McKay, the then amateur champion of New Zealand whom he conquered. In 1891 he met and defeated George Bubear upon the Nepean with ease, while on only one occasion since he joined the professional ranks has he suffered defeat, that being at the hands of Stansbury, when he rowed for the championship of the world. It may be mentioned, however, that Sullivan holds the records for both the Parramatta and Nepean rivers, the only two recognised waterways of Australia. For the latter his time is 19min 15sec for the full championship course, and the former 18min 41 ½ sec. His last great race was against Bubear on the Thames for the championship of England and the Sportsman's challenge cup, in which he won as he wished.[1]
The title remained his until he was beaten by C.R. 'Wag' Harding on the Tyne in February 1895 and on the Thames in a September rematch.
He remained a prominent figure on the English rowing scene, and in 1901, he combined with fellow Kiwi and racehorse owner Spencer Gollan and the former Australia world sculling champion George Towns to break the long-distance rowing record.
They rowed a 35-foot treble sculler 104 miles from Oxford to Putney in 13 hours 56 minutes.
He moved into coaching and enjoyed a five-year unbeaten stint as the Oxford University eights coach for the annual boat race. In 1912, Sullivan became a coach on the 1912 German Olympic Games team in Stockholm. In the following year, the final season he coached Oxford, he took up a permanent position as the Berlin Rowing Club coach. That resulted in him being appointed Germany's head rowing coach for the 1916 Olympic Games.
That didn't turn out well. Sullivan started working with a group of young military officers in April 1914, and just over a fortnight after his last event in 1914, a military regatta staged at Wannsee on July 29, what became the First World War broke out. The eight crew he had been working with ahead of the Olympics was reduced by six, who were all killed in action within six months.
His wife and son accompanied him to Germany, but when the war broke out, Mrs Sullivan returned to England. However, his son was interned, followed a few months later by his father. From January 1915 until he was repatriated to England on March 17 1918, Sullivan was a prisoner of war. He and his son were detained in the Ruhleben camp. It was a harrowing time, as he explained to The Daily Telegraph.
I do not wish to make any detailed reference to Ruhleben at the present stage, preferring to withhold my statements for certain reasons. [His son and others remained in the camp.] Many reports have been given as regards this camp, and to some of these, from my own point of view, I feel that I must take exception. Some the reports are not just as they might be; in other cases probably they might have been made a little clearer. With some exceptions, the internees in the game are fairly well at the present time. It may seem a strange thing to say, but I think the older men in the camp, speaking generally, appear to have stood the wear and tear better than the younger men. For food, we depended almost solely on what came from England, and the bread which we received through the Dutch Red Cross.
The German authorities only supplied us with potatoes, and a little meat sometimes on Sunday, which they made up in the form of a stew. The food supplied by the enemy authorities has never been sufficient to keep body and soul together. Even at the beginning, when the German nation itself had plenty of food available, there was not enough for the prisoners. That is the sore point I have with the Germans – they did not provide the food when they were able to do so.[2]
Sport had been an integral part of the lives of internees and Sullivan's return to England was notable for the good physical condition he enjoyed.
Fred Pentland[3], I would like to say especially, was whole-heartedly energetic in the best interests of all kinds of sport. We held our first athletic meeting early in 1915, and of 1260 entries over 1100 competed. The programme had to be spread over a week, for we could not always have the use of the track. Ruhleben, as you know, is a converted trotting enclosure. We were quartered in stables and lofts, and my own sleeping room was a horsebox. But that is by the way. Our events included running races from sprints up to a mile, high and long jumps, hurdling, and a relay race round the course. The prizes were not great value, as you can guess, but they are much treasured.[4]
There were also chances to study foreign languages as many nations were represented among those interned and there were also opportunities for music and dance. While the Germans were 'not sportsmen as we know them' they never interfered in the activities but they also gave no assistance.
Some of our well-known footballers are interned at Ruhleben – Fred Pentland, Steve Bloomer, [Jack] Brierley, [Sam] Wolstenholme, and others. These old professional footballers have devoted no end of time to coaching and helping the younger men in the great winter game, always taking part in the play themselves. Pentland devoted much of his time to the position of secretary of the Sports Committee, and great praise is due to him for the energy which he has displayed in every way to make the men's internment as endurable as possible, as well as to promote their physical well-being. During the football season, teams were chosen from among the various barracks, and cup tie competitions were carried out. Tennis is also played, and there is a little hockey, and in the season, cricket. Education is not neglected. There is a school with about 1000 pupils. Men who in commercial circles have held big positions have devoted their time and ability to helping the younger men. People hearing this might think that Ruhleben was a very beautiful place. As far as its surroundings are concerned there is nothing much to grumble about. There is plenty of fresh air, but it is the energy of the interned themselves and the determination to keep up a good spirit, and that alone, which has enabled them to carry on. No assistance or encouragement whatever is received from Germans, and never has been. Whatever assistance there has been was procured from England itself.[5]
After the war, Sullivan took a position with the Amstel Club in Amsterdam but was soon enticed back to Germany. There were 100 rowing clubs on the banks of the Grunau River, with more than 2000 active oarsmen. The facilities at the Berliner Club, which signed him as a coach, were excellent, with sleeping accommodation for 50 and a rowing tank.
During that time, he coached club crews to 224 first-class race wins, including five German sculls titles, five German double sculls titles, and one eight.
Appointed to the 1932 German Olympic Games team for Los Angeles, his Berliner Club coxed four won the gold medal, with the New Zealand team of Noel Pope, Somers Cox, Charlie Saunders, John Solomon and Delmont Gullery finishing fourth. He retired from coaching after the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
When departing the Berliner club, an article in Wassersport said,
Tom Sullivan was entirely worthy of the great confidence we had in him. He was known as a master of the hard English school, of strict discipline and exact method of rowing. His work and mature art convinced everyone. He was an Englishman with an international outlook and an honest admiration for the Germans, a fascinating personality whom young and old under his jurisdiction respected and whom oarsmen from all parts of Germany were attracted.[6]
However, his retirement was short-lived, as Austria's rowing president invited him to Vienna to coach the Berlin silver medalist in the single sculls, Joe Hasenohrl.
Sullivan took Hasenohrl to London in 1937, where he won Henley's Diamond Sculls. A year later, Hasenohrl was unbeaten and won the European championship, in addition to the bronze and silver he won in 1935 and 1937, respectively.
Sullivan said,
I consider him to be the best amateur in the world today. He is a beautiful sculler.[7]
Sullivan rowed regularly in his 70s, and in 1948, he was still coaching. He coached Viennese sculler Romolo Catasta, who competed for Italy and won a bronze medal at the London Olympics.
A year later, Sullivan died in July 1949, aged 80,[8] in Vienna.
[1] C.B. Fry, The Strand, 3 February 1894
[2] Tom Sullivan, Manchester Guardian, 17 March 1918
[3] Fred Pentland played for Blackpool, Blackburn Rovers and Middlesbrough in the Football League, and he played five times in England in 1909. Like Sullivan, he was coach of the German Olympic football team. Fellow England players also interned were Sam Wolstenholme and Steve Bloomer.
[4] Tom Sullivan, Sporting Life, quoted in Wanganui Herald, May 16, 1918.
[5] ibid
[6] Herbert Buhtz, Wassersport, quoted by Hylton Cleaver: Sporting Rhapsody (1951).
[7] Tom Sullivan, Otago Daily Times, 28 December 1938
[8] New Zealand newspapers listed his age as 83 when he died, but he was 80
.