SPECTATOR SPORT
A remarkably good guy
Frank Keating
THE FIRST week of Wimbledon usually means a load of tabloid guff about not very much, but I certainly aim to round it off with a quiet and honest bottle at the memo- rial dinner to Arthur Ashe this Sunday at the Park Lane's Grosvenor House — even with tickets at £75 the jostle at the door this should include quite a few untennisy types determined to pay homage to a remarkably good guy, after reading his posthumous memoirs serialised in the Daily Telegraph last week. Profits go to the Grassroots Challenge, dear to Arthur's heart, which introduces poor kids all over the world to the value of getting in their first serve on the public parks. THE FIRST week of Wimbledon usually means a load of tabloid guff about not very much, but I certainly aim to round it off with a quiet and honest bottle at the memo- rial dinner to Arthur Ashe this Sunday at the Park Lane's Grosvenor House — even with tickets at £75 the jostle at the door this should include quite a few untennisy types determined to pay homage to a remarkably good guy, after reading his posthumous memoirs serialised in the Daily Telegraph last week. Profits go to the Grassroots Challenge, dear to Arthur's heart, which introduces poor kids all over the world to the value of getting in their first serve on the public parks.
Peter Ustinov is Sunday's main speaker, a tennis nut who once told me that the secret of the game was always to offer your opponent first service — that way, when anyone afterwards enquires how it went, `you can always truthfully and airily say, "Oh, games went with service in the early stages," and hope they won't bother to probe further into what was, inevitably, a 0-6,0-6 wipeout.' Those of a certain generation were spoiled rotten by a succession of epic Wim- bledon finals before men's tennis on grass became another activity to succumb to the muscle-bound bludgeon and sombre pout of serious money-making. For instance, in between good soldier Stan Smith's stupen- dous five-setter against the ogre-sprite, Ilie Nastase, 21 years and a week ago, and the draining dramatics of Bjorn Borg's tie- break final against John McEnroe, there was — most memorable of all — that utter- ly resplendent and still vivid July afternoon when Arthur Ashe outfoxed sharp and ruthless youth in the shape of Jimmy Con- nors.
Ashe that year had published a refresh- ing autobiography and, in exchange for a wodge of woffle about it, his publisher Stanley Paul agreed I could spend a few days with him at the pre-Wimbledon tournament up at Nottingham. When we met at the hotel, first night, Arthur asked, warily, 'Isn't this Enoch Powell territory, like you might call my home in the deep south, George Wallace's patch?' No, I reas- sured him, Mr Powell's patch is at Wolver- hampton, 'many a mile to the west in the Black Country'. Said Ashe, laughing fit to bust, 'Have you Brits no shame, actually calling a place the Black Country?', as I tried to explain that it was, oddly but in fact, nothing to do with pigment.
He was an utterly charming companion, tossing out insights like confetti around Easter Saturday porches. Even with three weeks to go, he forecast, with calm certain- ty, that he would beat Connors, the brazen youth, 'if only I can actually make the final — that's going to be the difficult part.'
He did, of course, quite gloriously slow- balling the pace merchant to the point of exasperation (C'mon, Jimmy, start trying!' `I am trying, f Chrissakes!'). It was as if Arthur, face buried in his green towel at each change-over, was hypnotising Connors to swat with fury every slow ball into the back netting. At the Park Lane 'champions' dinner later that night, in the very same room we cry for him this Sunday, I went to the top table, awestruck, to say 'Well played'. In our couple of weeks together, there had been much talk about South Africa where, controversially, he had dared to go coaching in Soweto. 'I've got it, man,' said the new champ. 'South Africa will be free by the end of the century. More TVs for Soweto! 'Cos how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen TV?
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