I’m reading a book about the histories of “how sport made Britain” and in the section on tennis comes:
”In 1934, Gladys Baldwin, a shorthand typist at Lever Brothers, met an ambitious teenager at Sunlight Tennis Club who promised to marry her. After a courtship of six hears, the teenager had become an Oxford don, and the wedding was celebrated at Mansfield College. The Don was ………………… who had only joined the club to approach his future wife, with what his biographer calls “his gift for finding a strategic route to a particular objective”.
Britain’s first technocratic prime minister knew in the 1930s that tennis clubs were still the place for nice couples to find each other. Gladys published two volumes of poetry and became a good friend of John Betzeman.”
I’m reading a book about the histories of “how sport made Britain” and in the section on tennis comes:
”In 1934, Gladys Baldwin, a shorthand typist at Lever Brothers, met an ambitious teenager at Sunlight Tennis Club who promised to marry her. After a courtship of six hears, the teenager had become an Oxford don, and the wedding was celebrated at Mansfield College. The Don was ………………… who had only joined the club to approach his future wife, with what his biographer calls “his gift for finding a strategic route to a particular objective”.
Britain’s first technocratic prime minister knew in the 1930s that tennis clubs were still the place for nice couples to find each other. Gladys published two volumes of poetry and became a good friend of John Betzeman.”
“That two old, exclusive schools played an annual sporting fixture may not be remarkable. But Eton v Harrow is the oldest continuous sporting contest in the world, played since 1805.
For many years it was a signature event in the British social calendar, attended by crowds numbering in their thousands, and reported in the national press. Its popularity was instrumental in establishing Lord’s which has no connection with either school, as the headquarters of a game that the English upper classes guarded keenly for centuries, sharing it only on their own terms”
Taken from “More than a Game” A history of how sport made Britain by David Horspool.
Comments
Absolutely right Len. Harold Wilson it was.
Are you up for another question from the same book?
For many years it was a signature event in the British social calendar, attended by crowds numbering in their thousands, and reported in the national press. Its popularity was instrumental in establishing Lord’s which has no connection with either school, as the headquarters of a game that the English upper classes guarded keenly for centuries, sharing it only on their own terms”
Taken from “More than a Game” A history of how sport made Britain by David Horspool.
The oldest sporting event in the world is Kirkpinar, an Oil Wrestling Tournament which has been held in the Turkish town of Edirne since 1346.
I wonder if the oil has ever beaten the human. Or maybe it is a contest between Sunflower Oil and Olive Oil.
'But Eton v Harrow is the oldest continuous sporting contest in the world, played since 1805'.
Sure Palace will claim that their first team have been playing their reserve team since 1804.