Rebel Fred Perry became UK exile and served in US Air Force in WWII after he was ostracised by Wimbledon snobs

The Sun

2 days ago

ANDY MURRAY will soon become only the second person to be honoured with a statue at the All England Club.
And having ended a 77-year wait for a British men's singles champion at Wimbledon, few would argue against Murray deserving the bronze likeness which will be unveiled at the 2027 Championships.
Yet even Murray's inspiring life and career - including three Major titles, two Olympic golds and a Davis Cup - pale in comparison with the only previous player to be handed this accolade, Fred Perry.
As the first man to complete a career Grand Slam, a three-time Wimbledon champion, a winner of eight Majors and four Davis Cups, you'd imagine that Perry was feted and honoured by the tennis authorities and the British establishment while at the peak of his powers in the 1930s.
Especially as he had been a world champion at table tennis, as well as the undisputed king of the lawns.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only was Perry a working-class man from Stockport and the son of a Labour MP, he was also a fashionista, a lothario, a heart-throb, a rebel and, ultimately, an exile.
He dated Hollywood sirens, including Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow, he married four times and, after emigrating and taking American citizenship, Perry served in the US Air Force during World War Two.
In an age of intense class-based snobbery and of strict amateurism in tennis, the elitist plum-suckers in the Wimbledon boardroom decided that Perry was a lad from the wrong side of the chalk lines.
When he turned professional in 1937, Perry was stripped of his All England Club membership, went on lengthy world tours and settled in the States - where he felt far more accepted than in stuffy pre-war Britain.
The first of Murray's two Wimbledon triumphs in 2013 ended a wait for a British men's singles champion which had stretched back to Perry's hat-trick of successes between 1934 and 1936.
And while the Scot was something of an outsider and an anti-establishment figure - especially in his early days - he competed in far more enlightened times than Perry, who was the victim of overt discrimination from the authorities.
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As well as his working-class northern roots, Perry was also frowned upon because he was simply too competitive, occasionally even showing dissent towards umpires - which was unheard of in the 30s.
He was extremely fast across the court and, unlike many of his competitors, was supremely fit - often training with the dominant Arsenal team of the 1930s to develop his sharpness.
But after a comprehensive victory over Australian Jack Crawford to win his first Wimbledon title - celebrated with a Centre Court cartwheel and a leap over the net - Perry suffered one of his most memorable instances of All England Club snobbery.
While soaking in a bath after coming off court, Perry claims he heard upper-crust committee member Brame Hillyard tell runner-up Crawford that "this was one day when the best man didn't win".
Hillyard then draped Perry's Wimbledon tie - symbolising his membership of the All England Club - over a seat rather than presenting it to the champion in person.
Perry later wrote in his autobiography: 'I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life. Instead of Fred J Perry the champ, I felt like Fred J Muggs the chimp.
'Some elements in the All England Club and the Lawn Tennis Association looked down on me as a hot-headed, outspoken tearaway rebel, not quite the class of chap they really wanted to see winning Wimbledon, even if he was English.'
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And Perry certainly wasn't the only British sporting great of his era to become ostracised by snobbish attitudes.
Harold Larwood, the great England fast bowler and hero of the Bodyline triumph over Don Bradman's Aussies in 1932-33, became a scapegoat for the diplomatic crisis sparked by the ruthless tactics of his upper-class captain Douglas Jardine.
Larwood, a former Nottinghamshire coal miner, would never play for England again and ended up emigrating to, of all places, Australia.
Perry, who inspired Great Britain to four consecutive Davis Cup triumphs, was far more popular with the public than his sport's top brass - and not least with women, who loved his fashion sense, including his on-court penchant for tailored white flannels and blazers.
He would, of course, go on to make millions from his Fred Perry fashion range - with its laurel wreath logo - which is still thriving to this day.
As for the ladies, Perry would marry four of them - including the Hollywood actress Helen Vinson and the model Sandra Breaux - before he settled down with Barbara Riese, the couple having two children and enjoying a 40-year marriage until Perry's death in 1995, aged 85.
He was finally accepted back into the fold at Wimbledon during the last 25 years of his life, broadcasting for the BBC before his statue was unveiled in 1982 - to Perry's intense pride.
'I never thought I'd live to see the day when a statue was put up to the son of a Labour MP inside the manicured grounds of Wimbledon,' he wrote in his memoirs.
'There will be a few former members of the All England Club and the LTA revolving in their graves at the thought of such a tribute paid to the man they regarded as a rebel from the wrong side of the tennis tramlines.'
Murray, who often felt his Scottishness was held against him during his early days at Wimbledon, never really knew the half of it.
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