Max Woosnam

Max Woosnam medal table
tennis
United Kingdom
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1920 Antwerp	Double
silver	1920 Antwerp	Mixed

Maxwell "Max" Woosnam (born September 6, 1892 in Liverpool ; † July 14, 1965 in Westminster ) was a British athlete who was particularly successful as a tennis and soccer player , but also practiced various other sports.

Career

Woosnam was born into a wealthy Liverpool family. His father was a pastor. After graduating from Winchester College , he studied at the University of Cambridge , which he also represented in numerous sports at competitions. In addition to football and tennis, this also included cricket , snooker , squash and golf . In World War I he fought alongside Siegfried Sassoon on both the Western Front and at the Battle of Gallipoli . After the war, he graduated in 1919 and worked for Imperial Chemical Industries until his retirement in 1954 .

Career in tennis and football

As early as 1914, Woosnam played as an amateur with the London club Corinthian FC before he moved to Chelsea FC after the war , both successful and strong teams at the time. Already after three games for Chelsea Woosnam moved again, this time to Manchester City . The reason for this was his private move to Manchester. He played a total of 95 games for Manchester City by 1925 and scored five goals. In 1922 he even played a game for the English national football team .

Parallel to his football career, Woosnam was also active in tennis and even very successful. He took part in the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp , where he won the gold medal in the doubles competition with Oswald Turnbull . In the final they defeated the Japanese Kashio Seiichirō and Kumagai Ichiya in four sets with 6: 2, 5: 7, 7: 5, 7: 5. In the individual, he was eliminated in the second round. In mixed doubles he competed with Kathleen McKane and reached the final with her. However, against Suzanne Lenglen and Max Décugis from France they lost 4: 6, 2: 6; it won the silver medal. He would also have been nominated for the English soccer team, but for lack of time he refrained from playing in a second sport at the games. At the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924 Woosnam appeared again, but he was eliminated in singles in the third round, in doubles already in the first round. In 1921 Woosnam also won the doubles competition at Wimbledon when he and Randolph Lycett defeated the siblings Arthur and Gordon Lowe 6: 3, 6: 0, 7: 5. In the same year he reached the final in mixed doubles with Phyllis Howkins . They were defeated by Elizabeth Ryan and Woosnam's final opponent in the singles, Lycett, smooth 3: 6, 1: 6. He achieved further success, among other things, with a tournament victory in Liverpool.

Between 1921 and 1924 Woosnam played six games for the British Davis Cup team . His balance sheets are balanced in singles with 1: 1 wins and in doubles with 3: 3 wins. He was the captain of the British team for many years.

literature

• Mick Collins: All-Round Genius: The Unknown Story of Britain's Greatest Sportsman . Aurum Press Limited, 2006. ISBN 1-84513-137-1 .

Web links

Commons : Max Woosnam  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Max Woosnam in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• ITF profile of Max Woosnam (English)
• Davis Cup stats by Max Woosnam (English)