By the time you read this issue, Wimbledon will have just finished. As we have done in previous years, The Dorsal View is happy to go back in time and look at some of the more offbeat aspects of this auspicious event – some of which were shocking and more than embarrassing to the highly proper tournament organisers.
The first Wimbledon championship took place on 9 July 1877, and 22 men competed, paying 11 shillings for the privilege. As this was Victorian Britain, women were not allowed to compete and around 200 people showed up to watch the event, which was played with heavy wooden rackets and a ball woven from flannel cloth.
A 27-year-old player from Wandsworth named Spencer Gore was the first winner, beating William Marshall in straight sets in a match that lasted 48 minutes. The competition was finally opened up to women in 1884, and a few years later 15-year-old Lottie Dodd won the Women’s Singles title. She is still the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon and it’s probably unlikely that record will ever be broken at this point.
It wasn’t until the 1900s that the competition was opened to non-British players (Irish players were already eligible as Ireland was then part of the UK) and American May Sutton was the first ‘overseas’ player to win the championship. Irishman Vere Thomas St Leger Goold, who was born in Waterford, had almost become Ireland’s first Wimbledon champion years earlier. It’s a fascinating story that ends in tragedy, not just for Goold and his then-wife, but more so for an unfortunate murder victim.
For background, Goold was born in 1853 into an eminent family, with his father a baron and magistrate, and his mother the daughter of an army Major General. Waterford was a hotbed of tennis and was one of the earliest regions to hold competitive lawn tournaments. Goold fell in love with the game and travelled to compete, becoming the first ever winner of the Irish Open in 1879 at the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in Dublin, which is still going strong today. His prize was £20, which was a handsome fee at the time.
Wimbledon came a few weeks later and Goold – who was known for his exceptional backhand – was firm favourite to win the Men’s Singles title. He made it all the way to the final, but historians note that when the day came, he was nursing a particularly bad hangover and was defeated in straight sets by the Reverend John Thorneycroft Hartley.
From here, things went downhill badly for Goold, who in addition to his heavy alcohol use, also gambled and reportedly indulged in opiates.
As his tennis declined, he met French woman Marie Violet, who had already been widowed twice, and had her own problems with addiction. The couple lost their money on (among other things) a laundry business, and subsequently moved to Monte Carlo, where they spent most of their time losing more money at the roulette tables.
They thought their luck was changing when they met generous Danish widow Emma Levin in 1907, and she loaned them £40 – again, a not-inconsiderable amount of money at the time. Of course, the Goolds lost the money at the tables and were none too pleased when Madam Levin wanted the money back.
There was a very public dispute over the money and Madam Levin was so embarrassed by the whole affair that she decided to return to Denmark, but not before stopping off at the Goold residence to try to get her money back. It seems a huge argument followed and after Levin had disappeared, police visited her apartment and found blood on the walls, furniture, and even the ceiling, as well as a butcher’s knife and dagger smeared with blood.
The Goolds went to Marseilles, with instructions that a large suitcase of theirs be sent to London. However, the porter was not convinced by the Goolds’ story that it contained ‘dead chickens’, and the foul stench and blood oozing from the suitcase were a bit of a giveaway.
The Goolds were eventually arrested. Vere tried to blame it on his wife, claiming he had been manipulated, but both were found guilty. Marie was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in prison. As for Vere, he was sentenced to life in prison on the dreaded Devil’s Island in French Guiana. There, he suffered terrible alcohol and opium withdrawal symptoms and eventually took his own life a year later, aged 55.
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