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Slazenger

Slazenger is a British sports equipment brand name sold throughout world, involving a variety of sporting categories. Established in 1881 it can trace its roots to 1810 and today is one of the oldest surviving sporting brand names. more...

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Slazengers

In 1881, four years after the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its first ever championships Slazengers produced 'The New Game of Lawn Tennis' complete in a box.

Slazengers were one of the dominant (wooden) racquet manufacturers in the world of their time. Over the years they produced such a wide variety of sports equipment from tennis racquets to clothing from golf equipment to rifles. But it was their bold move into tennis ball manufacturing late in the 1800s that arguably saw their greatest business achievement. Their plant in Barnsley manufactured tennis balls and exported them round the world.

In 1877 the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club revised the rules of the game and decided on a pneumatic and cloth covered ball (the first rules of 1875 had only stipulated 'that the balls be hollow and made of India rubber...balls covered in white cloth shall be used in fine weather.').

In 1902 Slazengers were appointed as the official tennis ball supplier to The Championships, Wimbledon, and so began the longest unbroken sporting sponsorship in history. In 1877 there were 22 entries and 180 tennis balls were used, at the 1939 Championships there were 531 entries and 8,352 Slazenger Lawn Tennis Balls were used, by 2005 there were 668 entries and a staggering 52,000 Slazenger Lawn Tennis Balls were used.

During Queen Victoria's reign three manufacturing firms were founded in the 1870s and 1880's by Albert Slazenger and Ralph Slazenger, William Sykes and Harry Gradidge each originally manufacturing for the increasingly popular pastimes of the day - lawn tennis, football (soccer) and cricket.

But it was some 50 years or so earlier that the forerunner to them all had been established - The House of Ayres. This company had begun life in 1810 by Edward Ayres, five years before the Battle of Waterloo. First established in Clerkenwell, England initially as a cabinet maker and wood turner for the production of indoor games only he soon developed a wider range of outdoor sporting goods as well.

The bombing of England during World War II was the catalyst that brought the four companies together: known after 1940 as the Slazengers Sykes Gradidge and Ayres Group of Companies.

Bombs over London

On 15 September 1940 during a heavy air raid on London, incendiary bombs fell on the Slazenger factory. The Gradidge factory in Woolwich also suffered similar fate. The Sykes factory located at Horbury was undamaged by the bombings, and although Slazenger and Gradidge were able to continue production at other centres it was perhaps a sign of the times that the four companies decided to pool their resources and form an association to work for the nation's war effort and then ultimately in peace time. Henceforth was the company known as Slazengers Sykes Gradidge and Ayres.