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Sorry for my silence over the last few months. It’s been a hectic time in which I’ve started my new job as Professor of History and Director of the International Centre for Sports History and Culture (ICSHC) at De Montfort University. It’s great to be at the heart of the sports history scene, and to be working closely with my colleagues in the Centre and the in wider History department. It’s also exciting to be in at the start of the new BA in Sports History and Culture, a unique undergraduate course, and to be working with the wonderful international students who make up the MA in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport.

I’ll get back to some proper blogging soon, but for now I just wanted to publicise a research opportunity that is available through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and which is perfect for high quality candidates wanting to undertake a PhD in sport and leisure history with us at the ICSHC. It’s called the Midlands3Cities (M3C) Doctoral Training Partnership, and it brings together six universities – Birmingham, Birmingham City, De Montfort, Leicester, Nottingham, and Nottingham Trent – in schemes of collaborative supervision. There are various kinds of funding available for UK and EU students. If you are interested in finding out more, or if you are a lecturer and think that some of your students might be up for this, then please email me on martin.polley@dmu.ac.uk for an informal chat.

The M3C website is here.

In a new initiative, I am publishing a guest blog for the first time. This one, by tennis enthusiast and freelance writer Jonny Rowntree, explores some aspects of Wimbledon’s historical relationship with advertising. If you would like to consider writing a guest blog on an aspect of sports history for this site, please contact me using the details on the Contact page.

The Wimbledon logo, 2014

Since the first Wimbledon tournament in 1877, tennis’ most prestigious event has become the grand stage of dramatic flourishes, redemption and reclamation. Even for non-tennis enthusiasts, Wimbledon has become a tradition that illuminates television sets in pubs and living rooms across the world, its logo as synonymous with the sport as the legends that have graced its turf. Larger than life personalities, wide media coverage, and a successful branding have forged the venue’s legacy.

In this article, we take a behind the scenes look into the oldest tennis tournament in the world and how it has cultivated and maintains the traditional image established in the early days of the game, and how Wimbledon is evolving and adapting to new technologies and developments in marketing and advertising.

1894 Programme for the Championship

Times have changed considerably from the first black and white print poster in 1894 highlighting the “Lawn Tennis Championships”. This initial break into the event is an excellent lesson in typography and there is a great sense of drama and anticipation, truly announcing itself in turn of the century style. The All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTCC), the organisers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, would print its first programme in the same year, outlining the court layout and a train schedule, all for threepence.

While these designs would change considerably, the Club wanted to maintain the spirit of its initial presence as a traditional private court, which kept clothing to white and advertising to a minimum.

Perry created posters fr London Transport until 1937

In 1928, London Transport employed artist Frederick Herry Perry to design a series of posters to promote services to Southfields tube station. This saw a considerable move towards livelier colours than in the earlier materials, creating a minimalist narrative with echoes of Art Deco. The 1931 poster was displayed in Underground stations, ticket offices and train carriages. Perry’s innovative design and inclusive graphics helped to open up Wimbledon to the greater public in terms of interest. The masterminds behind the marketing understood this all too well as they continued to target specific stations like Wimbledon itself and Southfields, which is closer to the grounds and was emphasized in the 1931 poster. Perry’s connection with the Underground Group and London Transport enabled him to continue his impressive career with Wimbledon until 1937, the year the event was broadcast for the first time on television.

Wimbledon’s publicity was increased considerably in the 1980s by the work of Tennis Week’s John Davies, illustrator for both posters and magazine covers. These combined a colourful, pastoral style reflecting vintage eras of the traditional English pastime.  Davies’ work is a reflection of Wimbledon’s eagerness to present the event as a distinctly English occasion.

Rolex timekeeping at Wimbledon

Ralph Lauren branded uniform for ball girls and boys

As television and radio coverage expanded over the years, the question of further sponsorship opportunities arose. Wimbledon increased in popularity, with 300,000 attending the championship throughout the 1970s, 400,000 towards the late 1980s and the 2010 tournament attracting 500,000 people, according to ESPN. In this context, and with an eye on Wimbledon’s prestigious brand, the organisers resolved to keep sponsorship to a minimum, with only minimal advertising from brands that would appeal to the ABC1 demographic that the event famously attracts. Rather than bring in perimeter advertising or tournament sponsorship, as other sports were doing at this time, Wimbledon restricted advertising to elite makers’ names on essential equipment. Rolex, the official timekeeper from 1978, thus appeared on scoreboards and courtside clocks, IBM’s logo appeared on the service speed board, while other names have been like Slazenger (which has been there since 1902) and Ralph Lauren, which arrived in 2006.

IBM branded service speed board

Eager to keep afloat in modern times, Wimbledon went online in 1995. The official website has grown considerably, from 3.2 million to 19.6 million visitors when comparing 2001 to 2013. Additionally, with the growth of smartphone ownership in the late 2000s, Wimbledon commissioned IBM to create a bespoke app which has been downloaded by over 1.7 million users.

Wimbledon’s commitment to solidifying its brand and not selling out to sponsors has paid off – 2010 alone saw a surplus of £31 million. Wimbledon referee Alan Mills stated that if the AELTCC decked out the tournament in a fashion like the US Open, then ‘It wouldn’t be Wimbledon, would it?’.

Arguably, Mills’ statement could be dismissed as somewhat passé given the number of apparently traditional sporting events that have embraced sponsorship, such as golf’s Open Championship, which began in 1860 and is debatably as steeped in tradition and ritual as Wimbledon, yet sees players sporting outfits emblazoned with their sponsors’ logos and hoardings around the course promoting corporate partnerships.

With this example in mind, however, we could argue that golf has lost some of its tradition and apparently exclusive allure, and the same thing could potentially happen to Wimbledon if it’s brand of tradition was broken.  That is to say that key sponsors, partners, and brands that associate themselves with the event will lose interest due to the reduced exclusivity and perceived debasement of the event if less prestigious brands were allowed to advertise there.

In an interview with the UK Tennis Industry Association in 2013, Sir Martin Sorrel, CEO of WPP Group (also known for being group finance director at Saatchi & Saatchi), claimed that ‘outside of the Olympic Games and the World Cup, Wimbledon is the most powerful sports property’, with a worldwide audience of more than one billion. While Wimbledon continues to tread slowly into the domain of sponsorship, its selections are carefully attuned to its brand. Stella Artois joined in 2014 as official supplier in a contract which ends in 2018 as a part of ‘The World’s Greatest Events’ campaign, while Pimm’s continues to be sold as one of the two staple drinks at the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Sony promoted their range of 4K televisions during Wimbledon using a player’s nails

With these restrictions in place, sponsors have had to find innovative ways of marketing, and social media has proved indispensable as a means of doing this. Andy Murray’s popular Twitter presence was partly helped by a rigorous social media campaign by his sponsor Adidas. Tech companies like Sony have capitalised on the high-definition revolution by using footage of Wimbledon players like Anne Keothavong to showcase tiny logos that can be seen only on their 4k screens.

The use of modern advertising and marketing practices and channels has allowed Wimbledon to continue to thrive whilst not losing its traditional image. Viewers can connect with the tournament through marketing promotions produced not only by its official suppliers, but also by brands using the umbrella of the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Jonny Rowntree, @shoutjonny, St Ermin’s Hotel

Routledge have just brought out a new book in their series Routledge Research in Sports History. Edited by Pascal Delheye, it’s called Making Sport History: disciplines, identities and the historiography of sport. The collection brings together essays on different aspects of researching and teaching sports history, with authors from North America, Australasia, and Europe all contributing. My chapter, ‘History and Sport Studies: Some Methodological Reflections on Undergraduate Teaching’, is a personal reflection on the challenges and opportunities of teaching history on a Sport Studies degree course, where most of the students chose to give up History while still at school.

The book is now available from Routledge.

ARP women knitting, 1940

Over the last few years, I’ve been involved with In The Loop, a fascinating project run by Winchester School of Art on the history, politics, and practice of knitting. I first got involved when I gave a paper on sports-related knitting patterns at their inaugural conference in 2008, which ended up being picked up by other conference organisers – since then, I’ve given keynotes on this rather unlikely subject at conferences in Bolton, Brighton, Southampton, and Malmo, and written it up for an American craft magazine. Then, in 2012, I spoke at In The Loop 3 on knitting and the Olympic Games, a paper which I’ve also taken to the sources with a paper called ‘Sweaters and the Services’. I’ll be touching on the portrayal of knitting in wartime propaganda, on the wartime knitting boom, and on the representations of service men and women in patterns of the First and Second World Wars.AGM of the Knitting and Crochet Guild, and which forms the basis of my new article in a knitting-themed issue of Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, out in March 2014. For In the Loop 2014, which takes place at Southampton and Winchester on 2-3 April, I’m moving away from sport but keeping a focus on knitting patterns as historical 

Click here for full details of In The Loop, and for the programme for the study days. Click here for details of the Knitting Reference Library at Winchester School of Art. You can also follow In Loop on @intheloop3.

Volume 2 of the Routledge Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is now out, edited by Vassil Girginov of Brunel University. It’s a fascinating project, with both volumes devoted to a diverse, wide-ranging, and critical discussion of the Games. Across the two volumes, themes include bidding, planning, legacy, celebrity, and protests, and the authors who have contributed include academics from a range of backgrounds. My chapter is called ‘Inspire a Publication: Books, Journals, and the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’, and is part of the section on Documenting the Games. Big thanks go to Vassil for his vision and hard work in managing this huge project.

I’m delighted to see Fiona Skillen‘s first book has come out – Women, Sport and Modernity in Interwar Britain. It’s part of the new series of sports history monographs that Peter Lang are publishing in the series Sport, History and Culture, where it joins Dave Day’s Professional, Amateurs and Performance. The series is mainly dedicated to bringing expanded versions of excellent PhD theses to the wider audiences that they deserve, and it’s great to see Fiona’s work in this setting.

Starting next week, I’m joining the teaching staff at the University of Winchester as a part-time tutor in two departments – Sports Studies and History. I’ll be leading a module on the history of sport on the Sports Studies department’s undergraduate course, team teaching on modules on sport sociology and sports development, and supervising some undergraduate dissertations. In History, I’ll be supervising some undergraduate dissertations, teaching an MA module on Victorian sport and leisure, and contributing to another MA module on historiography. I’m excited about returning to Winchester, where I taught in the 1990s when it was King Alfred’s College, and I’m looking forward to meeting the students and working with a range of colleagues across the disciplines.

To coincide with this new post, I’ve relaunched my profile on Academia.edu, where you can find some of my published papers. I’ll be adding more soon.

As I write, my football team, Brentford FC, are halfway through their Football League Trophy match against AFC Wimbledon. It’s 1-0 to Brentford at half-time. I couldn’t make the game tonight, but my thoughts, as ever, are there, especially as this is the only knock-out competition in which we have a chance of making it to Wembley. However, tonight I’m thinking less about that and more about a match I went to against the old Wimbledon FC, the original club from before the Milton Keynes Franchise arrived and the grassroots AFC Wimbledon emerged.

It was a League match in the old Fourth Division back in January 1978. Wimbledon were enjoying their first season in the League, and we were hoping to escape from the basement. We had already beaten them 4-1 at Griffin Park back in August, and my brother David and I made the bus trip across south-west London to see the return fixture. I remember the ground as pretty run-down and unloved, although the club had done brilliantly in getting into the League: indeed, our grandfather, who had played for Dulwich Hamlet against Wimbledon back in the 1920s, found it hilarious that this could ever be a league ground.

I don’t remember much of the match – I was 11, and I have to be honest and admit that I’ve had to look up the score at the wonderful stats site 11v11 (it was a 1-1 draw, for the record). My main memories are of the Brentford fans all arriving early and strolling into the home end. These were the bad old days of football hooliganism, remember, and fans bragged about their ability to take an end, but we certainly weren’t hooligans and I didn’t see any hint of fighting, so the impression I got was that the home fans can’t have been that bothered. I remember loud singing, and a good atmosphere, and I remember that David had a home-made banner – some partisan message painted on an old sheet. I remember the obligatory pitch invasion at the end – totally normal for lower league matches at that time. The only scary note came as David and I walked the length of the pitch to leave at the far end, when a Wimbledon fan who had obviously clocked our banner came up behind and relieved us of it. Again, no violence or intimidation, just a bit of casual pickpocketing.

Brentford left Division 4 at the end of that season, and so much of that promotion season still remains fresh for me – it was a formative experience, the first time that my team had really achieved anything. Wimbledon took a bit longer, but went on to their meteoric rise to the First Division and FA Cup triumph before their equally spectacular fall into debt and destruction. Now that AFC Wimbledon are back in the League alongside the interlopers from Milton Keynes, the circle is feeling complete. But Plough Lane, that stadium that my grandfather laughed at and where we had our banner nicked, is long gone. Wimbledon left it in 1998 for their nomadic last few years, and the ground was demolished in 2002. There is now a housing estate on the site, with a memory of the club resonating through the estate’s name, Reynolds Gate, named for Wimbledon legend Eddie Reynolds.

In the time it’s taken me to write this, the score in tonight’s game has gone from 1-0 to 5-1. Brentford are on the verge of their best victory for some time. For me, though, sitting here and following it on-line, the abiding memory that will come whenever I hear the names of Brentford and Wimbledon together, will be of a cold January in the late 1970s and a stolen banner.

The Free Word Centre invited me to write a piece for their website giving some historical perspective to the International Olympic Committee’s attitude towards the Sochi boycott calls. It looks at LGBT issues, and at some of the other times that the IOC has had to make a stand or ignore a political issue. You can read the post here.