When I was a lad they used to make the tennis balls for the Wimbledon Championships in Barnsley.
And they used to give the away free to local schools.
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11 years ago
OT Wimbledon
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11 years ago
I'd be interested in knowing a bit more about how they are (or were) made.
When I lived in Cambridge I played a little Real (Royal) Tennis at one of the clubs there. The balls for this have cork cores and are made by hand at the club. They collect the cork from old wine bottles, cut them into ~1/4" cubes, then assemble them into a sphere & sew them into casings, of a similar shape but rather smaller than the familiar 'figure of eight' casings of tennis balls.
Real Tennis has a poncy image, and I'm sure there is a lot of associated snobbery, but it's actually a pretty good game. You wouldn't want to be hit by one of those balls going at 100mph ...
J^n
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11 years ago
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11 years ago
I put an aerial on the roof of the factory. Doncaster Road I think.
Bill
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11 years ago
If you knew someone who knew someone who worked there you got slight seconds Dunlop tennis rackets dirt cheap and enough tennis balls to lose one in every hedge and rainwater gutter in the street. Of course back then all the tennis rackets were wood so the defects were minor things like a bit of varnish that had run or wonky pinstriping
The Sports Turf Research Institute in Bingley is also providing a lot of assistance to Wimbledon to ensure the quality of the playing surface and also in getting it back to normal in less than three weeks.
If it hadn't been for the beer, and the mines, and the mills, and the steelworks Yorkshire should have been a hotspot for tennis talent. Rumours are this lass came from Wath.
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