There was a temporary three-plank stand offering seats to
30 people, the total attendance for the final was 200, and
the weather was grim. Welcome to Wimbledon 1877, the year
of the first Championships. The tournament was held at the
site of the All England Club's first rented premises, four
acres of meadowland between Worple Road and the tracks of
the London and South Western Railway in what was then the
outer London suburb of Wimbledon. The champion, from an entry
of 22 men - no women were permitted to play in those days
- was W. Spencer Gore, aged 27.
In common with the other 21 hopefuls competing for the
first prize valued at 12 guineas, plus a silver challenge
cup valued at 25 guineas, Gore was not a devotee of the
new sport of lawn tennis. A keen follower of cricket, Gore
also played real tennis and rackets. The day of the tennis
specialist was still far away.
In fact in 1877 tennis was very much an afterthought at
the All England Club, which had been founded nine years
earlier to promote the game of croquet. But as the new game
of tennis began to overtake the more sedate croquet in the
minds of a growing middle class population, it was decided
to incorporate tennis courts into the club facilities.
There were, of course, strict regulations in the matter
of attire. A notice on the clubhouse door advised "Gentlemen
are kindly requested not to play in shirtsleeves when ladies
are present." The greater physical exertions of tennis
also required more than the post-croquet rinsing of hands
and the enterprising Dr. Henry Jones, a committee member
and general practitioner, built at his own expense a bathroom,
for the use of which he charged a fee.
The weekly sporting magazine The Field, in whose London
offices the All England Croquet Club had been founded in
July 1868, became one of the sporting world's earliest sponsors
when it publicised "a lawn tennis meeting, open to
all amateurs, entrance fee £1 1s 0d" and put
up the trophy. A footnote indicated that rackets and "shoes
without heels" should be provided by the players themselves,
though balls would be supplied by the club gardener.
Dr. Jones, who was appointed referee, did much more than
introduce bathroom facilities to Worple Road. He was instrumental
in drawing up the rules for the first Wimbledon. As the
game had spread in popularity, following its introduction
in Britain by the cavalry major, Walter Clopton Wingfield,
the Marylebone Cricket Club, the controlling body not only
of cricket but also real tennis, devised a set of rules
for tennis. Dr. Jones and his committee revised those rules
into the form in which the sport is played to this day,
though players changed ends only at the conclusion of each
set.
The scene of the first Wimbledon would have been more or
less recognisable to present-day followers of tennis, but
the equipment and style of play were, perforce, rudimentary
in a new sport. The rackets resembled snowshoes in shape
and weight, the balls had hand-sewn flannel outer casings
and the serving was round-arm rather than overhead.
Though the tournament's opening day, Monday July 9, had
been set, the event was the victim of weird scheduling.
After the semi-finals on Thursday July 12 the competition
was suspended to leave the London sporting scene free for
the top occasion, the Eton versus Harrow cricket match at
Lord's, over the next two days, with Wimbledon's first final
due to be played the following Monday, July 16.
Nobody bothered to record the crowd numbers for the historic
first day's play, when one of the entrants, C.F. Buller,
failed to turn up, reducing the number of matches from eleven
to ten. The eleven survivors were whittled down to six the
following day and then to three. Since the concept of using
byes only in the first round was still some years away,
William Marshall received a free passage into the final
while Gore beat C.G. Heathcote, an All England Club committee
man.
After the weekend's excitements of the cricket at Lord's,
the day of Wimbledon's final, for the first time but certainly
not the last, turned out wet and was postponed - not to
the next day but, in accordance with those more leisurely
times, until the following Thursday.
The paid attendance of 200 for the final (at a shilling
a head) again had to put up with damp and dreary weather
as Gore claimed his niche in sporting history by outclassing
Marshall 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. The one-sided match, delayed an
hour by rain, lasted only 48 minutes.
Written by Ron Atkin
