Evan Baille NOEL

Evan Noel, the 1907 Amateur racquets champion, qualified to meet Henry Leaf in the 1908 Olympic singles final but Leaf had injured his hand in the semi-final against John Jacob Astor and was obliged to withdraw. Noel thus won the first gold medal to be awarded at the 1908 Olympics on a walkover. As a losing semi-finalist, he also won a bronze medal in the doubles and later played in the Olympic Real Tennis tournament where he was eliminated in the first round. Evan Noel, who was ambidextrous but favored the left hand, was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge where, in addition to his talents for court games, he proved himself to be a fine cricketer, playing in the Winchester XI for three years and later captaining Trinity. A year after leaving Cambridge in 1901, he was admitted to the Inner temple and in 1903 he took up the post sports editor of The Times but, acting on advice from his doctor that night work on a newspaper would be detrimental to his fragile health, in 1909 he resigned. In 1914, Noel, the leading historian of court games, was appointed secretary and manager of the Queen’s Club and held this position until his death 14 years later. His daughter, Susan, won the British Women’s squash rackets title three times, and, like her father, became a noted sporting journalist.