Ad-vantage at Wimbledon!

A pile of official Wimbledon programmes of the 1980s and 1990s lay in the bowels of one my bookshelves The words below the Wimbledon logo in every publication are common ldquoUpon the lawns of the All England Club WimbledonrdquoWith the Championships on I decided it was a good time to flip through the pages of the past not so much to consume the writing but the imagesBut what are brochures without the advertisements and I soon got drawn to the creative work of the illustrators photographers and copy writers Hope you enjoy these advertisements just like I didNike shoes endorsed by John McEnroe who was abrasive abusive and angry all the time McEnroe swears by them Dunlop racquets endorsed by McEnroe The best of British John Another Dunlop ad How to handle a winnerWords below a picture of a strawberry in an advertisement for Lillywhites the sports gear store at Piccadilly Circus Just one of the few things yoursquoll see at Wimbledon rsquo83 that canrsquot be bought at LillywhitesTwo pages later words above a photograph of two tennisplaying couples dressed in tennis attire in an advertisement for Fred Perry Sportswear Just some of the few things you will see at Wimbledon rsquo83 that can be bought at LillywhitesSportswear giants Lacoste who were celebrating 50 years in the business in 1983 had a tennis couple posing with the words A set of crocodilesAnd when they launched their range of tennis shoes the 1985 Wimbledon souvenir carried an advertisement which showed a male model in tennis attire with a pair of Lacoste white shoes around his neck with the words Crocodiles now wear shoesOf course one of the more popular Lacoste advertisements was Nothing better has ever been invented for playing tennis Nothing better ever will be invented for playing tennisSlazenger another sports gear biggie found it apt to advertise for their balls sold in a tin during the Championships with a background sketch of the Wimbledon tube station and words The official ball arrives by tubeIn 1997 their word play for Wimbledon balls and Brit tennis hope Tim Henman read Tim Henman plays our racket Everyone plays our balls There was another balls ad No break of service since 1902Annabel Croft the pretty British tennis player endorsed Slazenger whose advertisement appeared in a programme The photograph which displayed her good looks was captioned Britainrsquos tennis chances never looked betterThe BBC too didnrsquot miss out on joining the lookhowwedoit bandwagon with an image of a television camera on a crane No one rises to the big occasion quite like BBC TelevisionWhatrsquos victory without the bubbly and champagne makers GH Mumm put this out for the 1990 edition Wimbledonrsquos better when it poursLondonbased racquet strings specialists Bow Brand offered tennis fans a Bow cat sticker if they requested for one through mail and their advertisement read It takes guts Bow Brand naturallyBjorn Borg was not at Wimbledon in 1983 and so an advertisement for Swedenrsquos automobile firm Saab which offered test drives to Wimbledon visitors read One Swedish star that will be at Wimbledon this yearThe advertisement for Nikon which produced a limited edition of 2000 pairs of binoculars had a tiny image on a page with small almostunreadable words Looks like you could do with a pair of limited edition Wimbledon binocularsAnd finally to usher in the internet age and launch wimbledonorg an inhouse advertisement read This year why not take a closer look at the netmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper