Johnny Leach
Johnny Leach (born November 20, 1922 in London - † June 5, 2014 ) was an English table tennis player . He took part in 13 world championships and was twice world champion in singles.
Active career
Leach began playing table tennis at the Romford YMCA club. In the early 1940s he served in the Royal Air Force in Northern Ireland . During this time he trained with Jack Carrington until 1949 . With this he won the silver medal in doubles when he first participated in a world championship in 1947. Two years later - in 1949 - he became individual world champion for the first time. He was able to repeat this success at the 1951 World Cup. In the following years he won several medals. In 1953 he was team world champion with the English team. With Richard Bergmann in doubles, he took second place twice, the same was achieved in 1952 in mixed with Diane Rowe , the later wife of Eberhard Schöler . Leach was last at a World Cup in 1963. In the ITTF world rankings , he was ranked first in 1951. Together with Richard Bergmann, Leach traveled all over the world in the mid-1950s and organized exhibition fights.
Johnny Leach was a defender . To this day he is the last individual world champion to play defense.
Activities as a functionary
In the 1950s he became Managing Director of the company that manufactured and marketed his clubs. The wine-red and highly elastic "Leach" pimple rubber sold by his company and the racket wrapped with a perforated leather cord were still considered an "insider tip" among the more aggressive pimple rubber specialists until the mid-1970s.
After the end of his active career, he took on a few offices as a functionary. First, the English Table Tennis Association named him the "non-playing captain" of the British team. For a long time he was President of Haverhill, where he also played golf and occasionally took part in the Pro-Am tournaments. Since 1961 he was also president of the Essex County Table Tennis Association. Finally in 1988 he became president of the English table tennis association ETTA . He held this position for 24 years before being replaced by Keith Ponting in 2012.
In 1966, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the title of MBE ( Member of the British Empire ). In 1997 he was inducted into the ITTF Hall of Fame .
Fonts
Leach wrote several textbooks on table tennis:
- How to play table tennis (1952, Verlag Gerd Hatje Stuttgart)
- Table Tennis For All (1951)
- Table Tennis My Way (1955)
- Table Tennis Complete (1960)
- Better Table Tennis (1969), ISBN 0-7182-0152-3 .
- Table Tennis for the 'seventies (1971)
- Table Tennis Made Easy (1971)
In the 1950s, Leach wrote weekly in the Sunday paper .
Private
Johnny Leach was married and had two sons with his wife Daisy († 2009). He died of a stroke.
successes
- Participation in table tennis world championships
-
1947 in Paris
- 3rd place single
- 2nd place doubles (with Jack Carrington )
-
1949 in Stockholm
- 1st place single
- 3rd place mixed (with Margaret Franks )
- 3rd place with English team
-
1950 in Budapest
- 3rd place with English team
-
1951 in Vienna
- 1st place single
- 3rd place doubles (with Jack Carrington )
- 3rd place mixed (with Diane Rowe )
-
1952 in Bombay
- 2nd place doubles (with Richard Bergmann )
- 2nd place mixed (with Diane Rowe )
- 2nd place with English team
-
1953 in Bucharest
- 2nd place doubles (with Richard Bergmann )
- 1st place with English team
-
1954 in London
- 3rd place with English team
-
1955 in Utrecht
- Quarterfinals in doubles
- 3rd place with English team
-
1956 in Tokyo
- Quarter-finals in doubles (with Richard Bergmann )
- 5th place with English team
-
1957 in Stockholm
- Quarter-finals in mixed (with Diane Rowe )
- 11th place with English team
-
1959 in Dortmund
- 9th place with English team
-
1961 in Beijing
- 4th place with English team
-
1963 in Prague
- Use only in doubles
-
1947 in Paris
- Participation in European championships
-
National English Championships
- 1959/60 1st place doubles (with Michael Thornhill ), 1st place mixed (with Diane Rowe )
- 1961/62 1st place mixed (with Diane Rowe )
- 1963/64 1st place doubles (with David Craemer)
-
England Open Championships
- 1950/51 1st place doubles (with Jack Carrington )
- 1952/53 2nd place singles, 1st place doubles (with Richard Bergmann )
- 1959/60 1st place doubles (with Michael Thornhill )
- International championships
In 1950 and 1951, Leach won the international championships in France, Belgium and Wales.
- 1950 US Open: 1st place singles
Results from the ITTF database
Association | event | year | place | country | singles | Double | Mixed | team |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CLOSELY | European Championship | 1962 | Berlin | FRG | last 16 | |||
CLOSELY | European Championship | 1960 | Zagreb | YUG | Quarter finals | |||
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1963 | Prague | TCH | no participants | last 16 | no participants | |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1961 | Beijing | CHN | last 128 | Scratched | no participants | 4th |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1959 | Dortmund | FRG | last 64 | last 64 | last 64 | 9 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1957 | Stockholm | SWE | last 64 | last 16 | Quarter finals | 11 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1956 | Tokyo | JPN | last 32 | Quarter finals | last 16 | 5 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1955 | Utrecht | NED | Quarter finals | Quarter finals | last 16 | 3 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1954 | Wembley | CLOSELY | last 32 | last 16 | Quarter finals | 3 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1953 | Bucharest | ROU | last 16 | silver | Quarter finals | 1 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1952 | Bombay | IND | last 16 | silver | silver | 2 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1951 | Vienna | AUT | gold | Semifinals | Semifinals | 4th |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1950 | Budapest | HUN | last 16 | last 32 | Quarter finals | 3 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1949 | Stockholm | SWE | gold | Quarter finals | Semifinals | 3 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1948 | Wembley | CLOSELY | last 16 | last 64 | Quarter finals | 5 |
CLOSELY | World Championship | 1947 | Paris | FRA | Semifinals | silver | last 32 | 7th |
Web links
- Jeremy Wilson: England's Last World Champion! (English)
- Obituary by Ian Marshall on ittf.com, May 6, 2014 (accessed May 6, 2015)
- Johnny Leach - obituary. ( Memento from June 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Obituary in The Daily Telegraph from June 24, 2014 (English)
- Obituary by Alan Ransome in SCI-News No. 97, September 2014, page 30 (accessed on May 6, 2015)
Individual evidence
- ↑ DTS magazine , 1951/19 issue west-south, page 3
- ↑ DTS magazine , 1954/21 page 17
- ↑ DTS magazine , 1998/9 page 5
- ↑ Sports Top Honor For Keith (accessed April 14, 2012)
- ↑ DTS magazine , 1997/9 page 15
- ^ Johnny Leach results from the ITTF database on ittf.com (accessed September 11, 2011)
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Leach, Johnny |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English table tennis player |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 20, 1922 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
DATE OF DEATH | 5th June 2014 |