Chester Barnes
Chester Barnes | |
---|---|
Born | George Barnes 27 January 1947 Forest Gate, Essex, England, UK |
Died | 18 March 2021 | (aged 74)
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Racehorse Assistant Trainer |
George "Chester" Barnes (27 January 1947 – 18 March 2021)[1] was an English table tennis champion, who was England No. 1 player for many years during the 1960s and 1970s.[2]
When he retired from professional table tennis he took up a post with the Martin Pipe racing stables as an assistant to the racehorse trainer.[3]
Early life
Barnes was born in a maternity home in Forest Gate, Greater London, on 27 January 1947. When he was about a year old his family moved to live on a farm near Basingstoke, Hampshire. Barnes' family also lived for a short period on a farm in Whitley Wood near Reading.
In his autobiography, More Than A Match,
Early career
At the age of 10 he joined Len Hoffman's Youth Club, close to Godwin Road School, which he attended. Whilst at the school he was selected for the swimming, athletics and cricket teams, and at first had no interest in table tennis. In his autobiography, he states that he first picked up a table tennis bat when visiting a snooker hall with an uncle. He was stopped from playing snooker because the manager at the club felt he was too short and he couldn't see over the table. His uncle, rather than disappoint him, said they could play a game of table tennis instead. It was on this occasion that he picked up a table tennis bat for the first time and realised that there was a lot of skill required to play it well.[4]
At the age of 11 he started his secondary education at the Forest Gate County High School. Because of his interest in cricket, he was invited to attend the Essex County Cricket Club Training School in Ilford where Barry Knight was the resident cricket coach. It was the experience of having a very fast ball bowled to him by Barry Knight that led him to realise that his sporting future did not lie in cricket, because he felt that it was too dangerous. In his autobiography he says he was never really a 'team' player, so table tennis was more suited to his personal sporting ambitions.
During the school summer holidays in 1959, at the age of 12, he took his first step towards becoming a serious table tennis player, when the Len Hoffman Youth Club took a group of boys to
In 1963, aged 16, Barnes became the youngest ever winner of the English Closed Table Tennis Championships. He retained the title for three consecutive years, by winning the competition in 1964 and 1965.[5] At the start of the season of 1963/64 in September, Barnes was ranked at No. 3 in the English senior rankings and at No. 1 in the junior rankings. The top two positions in the English rankings were occupied by Harrison and Bryan Merrett, both of Gloucestershire. Harrison had been the England No. 1 for the previous four seasons. Barnes successfully defended the English Closed title that he had won the previous year in 1963 and, in early January 1964, when the ETTA published the new English rankings, his reward was to be promoted to the No. 1 spot for the first time in his career. At this time Barnes was still three weeks short of his 17th birthday.[6]
Harrison and Barnes became good friends and fierce competitors. They teamed up on many occasions for exhibition matches, the most notable of which was on the
Later career
In the course of his table tennis career, Barnes won many tournaments at junior and senior levels of the game around the UK, and also at national and international level. He was a top-ranked player in the world rankings at a time when the men's game was dominated by the Japanese, Chinese, and top European countries, notably Sweden, Yugoslavia and Germany. He was also an exceptional doubles player and played with many of the top men and women players of his day, winning numerous men's and mixed doubles titles. He played on numerous occasions for his county of Essex at the top level of the game, helping them to win the national English county table tennis league on several occasions. He represented England as an international on many occasions and played regularly in the Swaythling Cup, the table tennis equivalent of the Davis Cup. Barnes won the English Closed five times, and turned professional in 1975.
Early in his career, Barnes was involved in several clashes with officialdom. In a short time he became one of the best known sports personalities in England and demands for interviews, television appearances and exhibitions poured in. At the age of 16 he became the first English table tennis player in the history of the game to have a personal manager (Peter Madge) to handle his business interests, and the publicity that surrounded his success is well documented. His fame and success was such that he was approached by a leading publisher at the time (Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd., part of the Hutchinson Publishing Group) to write his autobiography.
The footballer, George Best, was a notable sportsman who had business and work interests outside his sport and, despite his amateur status as a table tennis player, Barnes too was making money from modelling and having sports equipment branded with his name. During his amateur career he both attracted and courted controversy. He used a unique square racket, which also catered for his preference for a bat that was heavier than a normal bat. He was one of the earliest British players to adopt the topspin attack style used by the best European and Asian players, along with the smooth reverse rubber used on the new rackets. Because of an old rule forbidding the use of reflective surfaces, this occasionally resulted in disqualification if the rubber became shiny in use.
Barnes was regarded as an anti-establishment figure in the world of table tennis, in keeping with the trends of the time, and was frequently in trouble with the
Horse Racing career
Barnes later became assistant trainer to
Death
He died on 18 March 2021 from a heart attack.[1] Barnes is survived by his wife Jane, son Lester and daughter Joanne.
Works
- More Than a Match (Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd., 1969)
- Modern Table Tennis Tactics (1973)
- Table Tennis (1975)
- Advanced Table Tennis Tactics (1975)
See also
References
- ^ a b Mason, Peter (29 March 2021). "Chester Barnes obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
- ^ Barry Meisel, "Champions from the past and present: Chester Barnes", reproduced in Table Tennis Talk. Accessed 2 November 2012
- ^ Richard Edmondson, "Racing: Right-hand man speaks volumes for Pipe", The Independent, 20 December 1997. Accessed 2 November 2012
- ^ a b c Autobiography "More Than a Match" published by Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd. (Hutchinson Publishing)
- ^ Getty Images: "Chester Barnes"
- ^ More Than a Match, published in 1969 by Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd.
- ^ Richard Birch (19 March 2021). "Pipe team legend Chester Barnes dies at the age of 74". Racing Post.