Plucky little Linda Conquest was the toast of all Devon yesterday (writes Rene McGrit) as the Totnes girl put up a magnificent fight at Wimbledon before going out 0-6, 0-6 to Judy Gomez, the nine-year-old sensation from Florida. Linda, ranked 1,890th in the world, ran and chased and retrieved wonderfully in a match lasting over 26 minutes on Court 49, but in the end she wasn’t quite good enough, and she could find no answer to Judy’s searching forehand, backhand, serve, volley, drop-shot and behind-the-back double-fisted sliced passing shot. ‘No complaints’, said Linda later, ‘but the conditions just weren’t right for me. I’m at my best in driving rain with the wind screaming down off Dartmoor and the light falling fast. And grass isn’t really my favourite surface either – I much prefer a good patch of buttercups and dandelions, with the odd cowpat here and there.’
            Meanwhile, in Las Vegas last night, plucky light-medium weight Terry Cardigan just wasn’t quite good enough to get the decision against the tearaway Neanderthal fighter from New Jersey, Roberto Machismo.
            After holding his own at the start, Terry just had no answer to Machismo’s searching biff in the face after 20 seconds and failed to beat the count. ‘I really reckoned I was ahead on points,’ said gallant Terry later, ‘ and if I could have just have stayed out of trouble for the next fifteen rounds, I would have been all right. But it was not to be.’
            Back home again, Bob Dilley’s plucky knock of three not out in 95 minutes wasn’t quite good enough to prevent the touring Australian side from chalking up a victory by an innings and 867 runs against an Eastern Counties XI. Dilley carried his bat throughout his side’s second innings for those three priceless runs and this may be the performance that finally gets him into the England side, at whose door he’s been knocking so long that he was beginning to wonder if there was anyone home. At a time when most English batsmen seem incapable of anything but a forward defensive prod, Bob’s favourite stroke (a snick over the top of the slip) may be just the tonic the national side needs.
            Another British hero this morning is 59-year-old Harold Crumpit, the Wimbledon umpire who put up such a plucky fight against the American Erich Froetz, when Froetz tried to beat him to death after a disputed line call: ‘I had just called his service out’, said Crumpit afterwards, ‘in the utmost good faith, though you can never be sure when your eyesight is failing as mine is. Then Froetz just descended on me, punching me, hitting me with his racket and firing wildly with a small pocket gin. I had no alternative but to penalise him two points. After that I must have passed out, I’m afraid.’
            Finally, a small prayer for Dr Pocket-Sinclair, the statistician who has just been drafted into the England World Cup soccer squad. Manager Rob Greenwood realises that our hopes rest mainly on statistics now, and that nothing less than about nine points from England’s last two games would guarantee survival. It would also help if Hungary and Romania failed to turn up for their remaining games and were disqualified. ‘Stranger things have happened,’ says Pocket-Sinclair at the controls of the England computer. ‘It’s about 25,000 to 1 against, admittedly, but you know, statistics is a funny old game. Don’t count plucky little England out yet.’

Moreover, The Times, June 25th 1981