Chester Barnes

Early life

Barnes was born in a maternity home in Forest Gate, Greater London, on 27 January 1947. When he was about a year old his family moved to live on a farm near Basingstoke, Hampshire. Barnes' family also lived for a short period on a farm in Whitley Wood near Reading.

Origins of his name, "Chester"'

In his autobiography, More Than A Match, Barnes sets out the details of how he came to be known as 'Chester'. His father was listening to the radio at the time of his birth when he was asked by the matron of the maternity home what christian name he was going to be called by. The programme playing on the radio at the time was the Charlie Chester Show, and his father replied: "We'll call him Chester." The book then goes on to say that Barnes was never actually christened with the name Chester although he was called by this name by both family and friends and has never been known as George.

Table tennis career – Overview

Chester Barnes was one of the most outstanding young table tennis players of his era, and had an extraordinary and very rapid rise to fame. At the age of 16 he won the Men's Singles title at the English National Closed Championships and, at the time of winning this first title in 1963, he was still classified as a junior.

It was during this period that he was involved in several clashes with officialdom. In a short time he became one of the best known sports personalities in England and demands for interviews, television appearances and exhibitions poured in. At the age of 16 he became the first English table tennis player in the history of the game to have a personal manager (Peter Madge) to handle his business interests, and the publicity that surrounded his success is well documented. His fame and success was such that he was approached by a leading publisher at the time (Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd., part of the Hutchinson Publishing Group) to write his autobiography. The footballer, George Best was a notable sportsman who had business and work interests outside of his sport and, despite his amateur status as a table tennis player, Barnes too was making money from modelling and having sports equipment branded with his name.

Controversies and clashes with the ETTA

During his amateur career he both attracted and courted controversy. He used a unique square racket, which also catered for his preference for a bat that was heavier than a normal bat. He was one of the earliest British players to adopt the topspin attack style used by the best European and Asian players, along with the smooth reverse rubber used on the new rackets. Because of an old rule forbidding the use of reflective surfaces, this occasionally resulted in disqualification if the rubber became shiny in use.

Barnes was regarded as an anti-establishment figure in the world of table tennis, in keeping with the trends of the time, and was frequently in trouble with the English Table Tennis Association, whom he saw as too conservative and even a clique that did not look after the best interests of the players. In his autobiography he described an incident where he issued a public ultimatum to the association to name him the No. 1 English player, having already been told behind the scenes that this would happen. The resulting publicity only helped to further his career and bring him more notoriety.

Table tennis career – early beginnings

At the age of 10 he joined Len Hoffman's Youth Club, which backed on to the Godwin Road School in Forest Gate. Whilst at Godwin Road school he was selected for the swimming, athletics and cricket teams. At this time, he had never played table tennis and his initial reaction to playing table tennis was that he felt it was a weak game for children who couldn't get into team games such as soccer and cricket.

At the age of 11 he started his secondary education at the Forest Gate County High School. It was because of his interest in cricket that he was invited to attend the Essex County Cricket Club Training School in Ilford where Barry Knight was the resident cricket coach. It was the experience of having a very fast ball bowled to him by Barry Knight that led him to realise that his sporting future did not lie in cricket, because he felt that it was too dangerous. On his own admission in his autobiography he says he was never really a 'team' player so table tennis was more suited to his personal sporting ambitions.

In his autobiography, Barnes said that he first picked up a table tennis bat when visiting a snooker hall with an uncle. He was stopped from playing snooker because the manager at the club felt he was too short and he couldn't see over the table. His uncle, rather than disappoint him, said they could play a game of table tennis instead. It was on this occasion that he picked up a table tennis bat for the first time and realised that there was a lot of skill required to play it well.

During the school summer holidays in 1959, at the age of 12, he took his first step towards becoming a serious table tennis player. The Len Hoffman Youth Club took a group of boys to Butlin's holiday camp in Clacton. Whilst the other boys in the group went off to do other things he stayed behind in the table tennis hall. It was there that he received coaching from Harry Venner who was the resident coach and an England international at the time. Because he showed a lot of enthusiasm for the game and due to his rapid progress in learning how to play, Venner nominated him for 'Boy of the week' prize, a competition that was sponsored by the News of the World newspaper. Winning this prize meant that he could return later in the summer season for a free week's holiday to receive more coaching.

The following year Barnes again went on holiday with his family to Butlin's at their Bognor Regis holiday camp. Despite having to compete with the two top England junior boys at the time, Maurice Billington of Warwickshire and Brian Hill from Lincolnshire, he was once again awarded the coveted News of the World 'Boy of the Week' prize by Johnny Leach, the former table tennis World champion. This was because Leach felt he had shown considerable promise and deserved the award over Billington and Hill. Billington's son is Bradley Billington who also became a top England ranked player in the 1990s.

This also meant that he had won a further free week's holiday for the second year running. It was during this period that he was coached by the England No. 1 at the time, Ian Harrison of Gloucestershire.

At the start of the season of 1963/64 in September, Barnes was ranked at No. 3 in the English senior rankings and at No. 1 in the junior rankings. The top two positions in the English rankings were occupied by Harrison and Bryan Merrett, both of Gloucestershire. Harrison had been the England No. 1 for the previous four seasons. Barnes successfully defended his English Closed title that he had won the previous year in 1963 and, in early January 1964, when the ETTA published the new English rankings, his reward was to be promoted to the No. 1 spot for the first time in his career. At this time Barnes was still only 16, just three weeks short of his 17th birthday.

Harrison and Barnes became good friends but were always fierce competitors on the table. They also teamed up on many occasions to do exhibition matches, the most notable of which was on the BBC live Saturday afternoon flagship sports programme, Grandstand, when they were due to play an international match against the east German national team. Because the German team were delayed in reaching the venue the two top England players put on an exhibition match instead. This match was watched by millions of viewers and did a great deal to lift the profile of English table tennis at the time.

Table tennis career – achievements

In 1963 Barnes became the youngest ever winner of the English Closed Table Tennis Championships. He then retained the title for three consecutive years, by winning the competition in 1964 and 1965.

During the course of his table tennis career, Barnes won many tournaments at junior and senior levels of the game around the UK, and also at national and international level. He was a top-ranked player in the world rankings at a time when the men's game was dominated by the Japanese, Chinese, and top European countries, notably Sweden, Yugoslavia and Germany.

Whilst he was sometimes considered a controversial figure, there is no doubt that he raised the profile of table tennis considerably, and his contribution to elevating the game of table tennis should not be underestimated. Table tennis is not a sport that often attracts too much coverage in the media but Barnes was a colourful character who managed, by taking on the authorities, to put the game on the map.

He was also an exceptional doubles player and played with many of the top men and women players of his day, winning numerous men's and mixed doubles titles.

He also played on numerous occasions for his county of Essex at the top level of the game, helping them to win the national English county table tennis league on several occasions.

He represented England as an international on many occasions and played regularly in the Swaythling Cup, which is the table tennis equivalent of the Davis Cup, the premier international men's team event in tennis.

Barnes won the English Closed five times, and he became a professional table tennis player in 1975.

The former English No. 1 table tennis player, Matthew Syed of Berkshire, who is now a sports journalist, has tried to interview Barnes so that his outstanding achievements during his years as a top flight table tennis player can be documented. Barnes has turned down Syed's request to be interviewed.

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