In 1977, Martina Navratilova won the women’s doubles title at the US Open while Billie Jean King was a runner-up in the mixed doubles.
They are two of the biggest gay icons in tennis but back then, neither’s sexuality was known publicly. This year, the US Open is now holding its fourth annual Pride Day, but in the late 1970s, attitudes towards the gay community in the Western world were very different.
In that same summer of 1977, an LGBTQIA+ tennis group was formed in London with Ricky Torkington one of the founders.
“There was an advert in the paper for the local Campaign for Homosexual Equality Group,” he told Sky Sports News. “So, I went along there, spoke to the guy who was running it and he asked if I would I be interested in helping out the group.
“I had never even met, knowingly, a gay person before then. I was 24. All of a sudden, there was 100+ people coming into a room. I thought ‘wow, this is different.’
“So I joined the social group and we were at a meeting one day when a couple of us were talking about tennis and we decided to start playing. There were three of us and it started from there. We put an advert in our local newsletter for interested tennis players.”
Ricky & Jim (left) looking through old photo albums from the group’s early days with Leigh & Tony (right)
By October of that same year, the group had already grown to more than 20 people, including keen tennis fan Tony Broad.
“I always knew that I was gay from a very early age at school,” he said. “Certainly, my parents didn’t accept it at all. They were very angry about it, so I left home at the age of 17.
“When I came down from Derby to London that really transformed my life because I realised I wasn’t alone. There were hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of other people like me.
“I was very keen on tennis. I’d always been a member of a tennis club and enjoyed playing very much so I made contact with them and joined. As a result, I made many, many friends.”
An older picture of the group in the 1990s
While the group numbers may have been growing, discrimination towards the gay community was still widespread.
Homosexuality had only been legalised in the UK in 1967 and the group sometimes faced threats and intimidation when they tried to play.
“Some people really weren’t happy about us playing,” said member Leigh Armstrong.
“They tried to intimidate us and make things difficult for us by not leaving the court when it was our time to play. Or things like throwing stones at us, letting the tyres down on our cars or intimidating us at the entrance.”
Ricky added: “It was annoying, but we stood up for ourselves. At the end of the day, we wanted to play tennis. We weren’t interested in what people were saying.”
The impact of AIDS-phobia
Those weren’t the only challenges the group faced. In 1981, just four years after the tennis group was formed, the HIV/AIDS epidemic began and its impact on the gay community was devastating.
“There was a lot of homophobia and AIDS-phobia at the time,” explained Tony.
“They talked about the ‘gay plague’. We were almost blamed for this disease which, of course, was completely ridiculous scientifically.
“We didn’t really understand what this virus was about and why it seemed to be in particular affecting drug users and gay men.
“The group numbers fell significantly as a result. It was quite common to talk about funeral fatigue.”
Jim Sewell had been part of the group since the summer of 1977. His doubles partner, Mike Harvey, was diagnosed with HIV and faced a number of challenges before his death in the early nineties.
Jim (left) & his doubles partner Mike in 1987
“I played doubles for many years with Mike whom one of our trophies is named after. We were quite successful,” he said.
“One of the side effects was Kaposi’s sarcoma which affected the skin. You’d get black marks on the skin. I remember he (Mike) was after a long-sleeved tennis shirt. I think we had to compromise on a cricket shirt in the end because he didn’t really want them to be seen.
“Mike died of AIDS just after New Year in 1990. It was undoubtedly a very difficult period.”
Launch of The ACE Project
By this point, the social support element of the group had become very important. Three years before his death, Mike and his partner Ray launched a project to help people with HIV/AIDS in Croydon.
The ACE Project – AIDS, Care and Education was established to provide facilities and support to those who needed it.
“People that we were playing tennis with were coming down to tennis on Sunday and having a difficult time – not feeling great,” Leigh explained.
“They hadn’t really got any support with them to go to hospitals or doctor’s appointments or when they were becoming more ill, to help them with things like their shopping. There was a real gap between people’s needs and what services were available.
“We looked for a building that we could provide services from. At the time, there was a disused maternity hospital in South London that was vacant.
“The health authority gave us the space but then we had to do all the decorating and the refurbishment and furnishing of that place. That’s where I came in and set up a fundraising group.”
One of the community centres the group used to support people with HIV/AIDS
The fundraising efforts were vast. They ranged from putting on shows, auctions and bingo nights to more professional ways of raising funds like setting up covenants and getting people to leave income in wills.
Tennis still played a big part too with a special tournament set up to raise money for the project.
“We actually had what we called The ACE Trophy,” explained Tony.
“We had singles and doubles tournaments and we paid money to play in these tournaments as a form of fundraising and we did this quite regularly.”
Tony presenting Leigh with a trophy after one of the fundraising tournaments
From 1987 to 2000, more than £700,000 was raised. The money helped build and staff two community centres for people with HIV/AIDS, which supported more than 800 people during that period.
“So many amazing young people were taken far too soon,” said Tony.
“But one hopes that in some small ways we contributed to helping their last days which were a little bit more comfortable than they otherwise might have been.”
The ACE Players Tennis Croydon group pictures this year
The group is now named the ACE Players Tennis Croydon and still has 30 members playing regularly. There are at least 13 LGBTQIA+ tennis groups across the UK and in 2022, the Lawn Tennis Association launched the UK’s first LGBTQIA+ tennis network: Pride in Tennis.
Shirley Park LTC, who host the ACE Players, are one of over 60 tennis clubs across the UK that have signed up to be LGBTQIA+ friendly venues known as ‘Rally Allies’.
“We’re getting so many new members,” Leigh explained. “Which still suggests it’s something LGBT people are interested in and want to be part of.”
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