British Tennis Writer Is Honored By The Queen

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 9th January 2014

British Tennis Writer Is Honored By The Queen

WIM13-20010706-LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM: US player Andre Agassi gets ready to serve during his semi final match against Patrick Rafter of Australia at the All England Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, Friday 06 July 2001. EPA PHOTO EPA/ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS |

Alan Little, one of Wimbledon’s firmest traditionalists but for so long one of the unsung heroes of the All England Club, has been awarded the MBE (member of the British Empire) in the Queen’s New Years’ Honours List for his services to tennis.

Little, Honorary Librarian of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and author of the annual and indispensable Wimbledon Compendium, the ultimate source of facts and figures about the Championships, has been a fixture at London SW19 since 1976.

Anyone who needs to know the names of the 16 players (six champions and ten finalists) who wore glasses in a Wimbledon final, need to look no further. Similarly Little has listed the 29 Wimbledon champions who wore headgear in a final.

All England Club chief executive Richard Lewis congratulated Little as he said: “Alan’s contribution to capturing the history of Wimbledon and tennis in general has been immense. The award is well deserved recognition for outstanding voluntary service to The Championships and the All England Club”.

During his time on the payroll of the All England Club, Little has written over 35 books on tennis and the Wimbledon Championships, ranging from Suzanne Lenglen, to the history of tennis in the Olympic Games. His latest work, ‘Tennis and the Riviera’, is due to be published later this year.

In addition he has more than 6,000 books in his care in the Kenneth Ritchie Wimbledon Library, the most comprehensive tennis library in the world. Little has been collecting books since he was a schoolboy. One of his earliest acquisitions was a copy of the MCC Rules of Tennis from 1877, which he bought for £1.

Having first played tennis and table tennis at school, Little attended Wimbledon for the first time in the 1940s, and from 1958 he began to write articles for magazines such as Lawn Tennis and Badminton and Tennis World.

In 1976, prior to the opening of the Museum in 1977, the Museum Committee sought 20 books to display in the Victorian Parlour showcase. Tom Todd, one of the Museum’s founders, suggested that Little was the person to ask, and he was subsequently invited by Ted Avory to consider setting up a library as part of the Museum.

Little was made an Honorary Member of the All England Club in 1984 and is a former winner of the Lawn Tennis Writers’ Association’s award for services to tennis.

Topics: 10sballs, Alan Little, All England Club, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News, Wimbledon