There is more to the SW19 Championships than watching the stars at play. What can tickle you is also the content in those official programmes sold during tennis’ favourite time of the year
A collage of the advertisements that were published in the official Wimbledon programme over the years
A pile of official Wimbledon programmes of the 1980s and 1990s lay in the bowels of one my bookshelves. The words below the Wimbledon logo in every publication are common: “Upon the lawns of the All England Club Wimbledon.”
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With the Championships on, I decided it was a good time to flip through the pages of the past, not so much to consume the writing but the images.
But what are brochures without the advertisements and I soon got drawn to the creative work of the illustrators, photographers and copy writers. Hope you enjoy these advertisements just like I did.
Nike shoes endorsed by John McEnroe, who was abrasive, abusive and angry all the time: McEnroe swears by them Dunlop racquets endorsed by McEnroe: The best of British John (Another Dunlop ad: How to handle a winner)
Words below a picture of a strawberry in an advertisement for Lillywhites, the sports gear store at Piccadilly Circus: Just one of the few things you’ll see at Wimbledon ’83 that can’t be bought at Lillywhites
Two pages later, words above a photograph of two tennis-playing couples dressed in tennis attire in an advertisement for Fred Perry Sportswear: Just some of the few things you will see at Wimbledon ’83 that can be bought at Lillywhites
Sportswear giants Lacoste, who were celebrating 50 years in the business in 1983, had a tennis couple posing with the words: A set of crocodiles
And when they launched their range of tennis shoes, the 1985 Wimbledon souvenir carried an advertisement which showed a male model in tennis attire with a pair of Lacoste white shoes around his neck with the words: Crocodiles now wear shoes
Of course, one of the more popular Lacoste advertisements was: Nothing better has ever been invented for playing tennis. Nothing better ever will be invented for playing tennis
Slazenger, another sports gear biggie, found it apt to advertise for their balls sold in a tin during the Championships with a background sketch of the Wimbledon tube station and words: The official ball arrives by tube
In 1997, their word play for Wimbledon balls and Brit tennis hope Tim Henman read: Tim Henman plays our racket. Everyone plays our balls. There was another balls ad - No break of service since 1902
Annabel Croft, the pretty British tennis player, endorsed Slazenger, whose advertisement appeared in a programme. The photograph which displayed her good looks was captioned: Britain’s tennis chances never looked better
The BBC too didn’t miss out on joining the look-how-we-do-it bandwagon with an image of a television camera on a crane: No one rises to the big occasion quite like BBC Television
What’s victory without the bubbly and champagne makers GH Mumm put this out for the 1990 edition: Wimbledon’s better when it pours
London-based racquet strings specialists Bow Brand offered tennis fans a Bow cat sticker if they requested for one through mail and their advertisement read: It takes guts, Bow Brand naturally
Bjorn Borg was not at Wimbledon in 1983 and so an advertisement for Sweden’s automobile firm Saab, which offered test drives to Wimbledon visitors, read: One Swedish star that will be at Wimbledon this year
The advertisement for Nikon, which produced a limited edition of 2,000 pairs of binoculars, had a tiny image on a page with small, almost-unreadable words: Looks like you could do with a pair of limited edition Wimbledon binoculars
And finally, to usher in the internet age and launch wimbledon.org, an in-house advertisement read: This year why not take a closer look at the net
mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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