As might have been expected from the man who co-founded The Guinness Book of Records, Ross McWhirter’s cover story for the Observer Magazine of 20 June 1965 about the Wimbledon tennis tournament was fairly heavy on facts and figures.
McWhirter writes in ‘The Wimbledon Business’ that in 1964 ‘the gross Wimbledon gate was worth more than £250,000’ and outlines its revenue from TV fees, car parking, etc. Costs included, ‘The 60 ball boys employed during the tournament, lent to the club by permission of the Council of Dr Barnardo’s Homes in return for an annual donation.’ Outgoing expenditure was significant, mostly because the courts have to be maintained for 50 weeks in the year outside of the tournament.
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, writes McWhirter, ‘runs what is by common consent easily the best-organised lawn tennis event in the world. Yet under the successful surface they certainly have their worries.’ This was at a time when the tournament was still open only to amateurs, but the committee and members of the club were ‘desperately keen to open Wimbledon to professionals’.
If they allowed that, he argues, ‘the Gordian knot will be cut and Wimbledon’s champion will again become without question the top lawn tennis player in the world… as he used to be in pre-war days.’
The wait wasn’t long – in 1968 the International Tennis Federation finally voted to allow professionals to play alongside the amateurs.
McWhirter concedes that the amateur men at Wimbledon are not the best in the world, but says the women players are. It’s a shame then that the great Brazilian tennis player Maria Bueno (‘whose attractions include a fluent serve and frilly pants’) is defined in the article as ‘the daughter of a São Paulo horse-pill manufacturer’. That surely has a strong claim for being a world record in itself.
