The Wombles and Sport
Due to the Wombles' association with the area, some local sporting teams representing Wimbledon are sometimes affectionately dubbed "the Wombles". These teams include the Ladies side of Wimbledon RFC (whose mascot is Alderney), Wimbledon Volleyball Club and the Wombles Netball Club.
From 2000 to June 2003, Wimbledon F.C. used a Womble named "Wandle" as a club mascot after the local River Wandle. However, in light of the controversy over the moving of the club to Milton Keynes, the licence to use the character was not renewed. In 2006 the club's spiritual successor AFC Wimbledon agreed a licensing deal, and launched its own Womble mascot. After a naming competition in which the final name was chosen by Elisabeth Beresford herself, the club announced that the new Womble would be known as "Haydon," after Haydons Road, the nearest railway station to Wimbledon's original home ground, Plough Lane.
Elisabeth Beresford also gave permission for a team of Wombles to run the London Marathon every year raising money for Jesuit Missions UK.
In a special episode of "A Question of Sport" that was themed around the Wimbledon tennis championships, Sue Barker mentioned having asked then team captains Ally McCoist and John Parrott to name their Wimbledon heroes. The replies were "Vinnie Jones" and "Uncle Bulgaria"!
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one chapter is better than a volume,—it may be sport to him, but it is death to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers are most unhappy also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)