From his early years at the Brentham Club to his heyday spent dominating Centre Court, Fred Perry put his success down to one thing: hard work. Recorded 25 years on from his landmark achievement of three consecutive Wimbledon championship wins, excerpts from this 1961 radio interview with the BBC offer an unparalleled insight into the mindset and methodology behind the man himself.
“I was always mixed up in sports. I used to be a table tennis player at one time. I won it in 1929 in Budapest, but before that I was always interested in sports (…) I used to push the kitchen table up against the wall at night and practice by the hour because I felt that you could learn a lot about it that way. I mean, the racquet became part of my hand. You knew all the spins, the counter-spins… One thing was quite certain – that every time the ball hit the wall it was coming back. If anybody was going to miss, you were. Of course, I drove everybody crazy.
One day, we went down for a holiday to Eastbourne, Devonshire Park and I looked through the fence and saw all these cars – these huge cars outside. I looked through the fence and I saw all these people dressed in white chasing a silly little ball around on the grass and I went back and asked my father: ‘What is this particular game?’ and he said ‘Well it’s lawn tennis. I have a racquet.’ I said I’d like to play this game if I can. I’m interested in this game. So, he said ‘I’ll give you the racquet.’ Of course, it was too heavy for me, but that was the first racquet I ever had and I think from that day on I practically lived on a tennis court (…)