player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameCharles Gladstone
LastnameAllen
GenderMale
CountryEngland
Date of birth1868-12-28
Place of birthSaint Neots, Bedfordshire, England
Date of death1924-12-21
Place of deathPrestbury, Gloucestershire, England

About

From Lawn Tennis and Badminton, 3rd January 1925:

The Late Mr Charles G. Allen

By Harold Scrivener

“Although Mr Charles Gladstone Allen, who died at his home at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, at the beginning of last week, had not been seen on a lawn tennis court in public competition since the termination of the war, his name as one of a once famous pair of twin brothers is still fresh in the memories of his contemporaries, and will be remembered even by those who came after him, since ‘the Allens’, long before their retirement, had won for themselves a permanent place in the annals of the game.

“Like the other two famous pairs of lawn tennis twins, the Renshaws [William and Ernest] and the Baddeleys [Wilfred and Herbert], ‘Charlie’ and ‘Roy’ (who survives him), were, to the casual observer, absurdly alike, and only distinguishable by those who were continually in their company.

“The distinguishing feature was that of two men who were big men without being really tall, Charlie being the bigger of the two. They were known (amongst other nicknames) as ‘the fat boys’, an illusion due, as they were careful to explain, to the rotundity of their faces. Their apparent portliness was only the expression of a wealth of bone, brawn and muscle. Had it been otherwise, they would not have been as active as they were.

“They were always clothed exactly alike – even to their walking sticks – and the fact that they parted their hair on different sides only helped to identify them when they were uncovered, and you happened to know which twin affected which side. The same reservation applied to the sides of the court which they occupied in doubles. The thing most easily remembered was that there was a bit more of Charlie than there was of Roy.

“There has never been a greater contrast between two first-rate pairs than that which existed between the Allens and their great twin rivals – usually, but not always, their conquerors – the Baddeleys. The latter were little men, taciturn, catlike, undemonstrative; the Allens, in keeping with their bulk, were bluff, hearty, exuberant, loquacious.

“Their way of keeping themselves and others up to the mark in a double was to indulge at every convenient opportunity in a bout of backchat, the almost boisterous humour of which, emphasised by whimsicalities of voice and gesture, kept the ‘gallery’ in a continuous state of merriment, and made them a big ‘draw’ wherever they went. ‘Hit ‘em! Hit ‘em! What’s the use of a great strong feller like you pattin’ ‘em!’ was one of their favourite exhortations.

“Born in 1869 [1868], they enjoyed the advantages (rare in those days) of learning the game during their boyhood. Their father, the Reverend Hunter Bird Allen, winner for three years in succession of the veterans’ championship, was their coach, and when they went up to Cambridge in 1889 they walked straight into the ‘Varsity team, and were a source of much tribulation to Oxford for three years. After they had gone down they habitually stayed in Cambridge for the first month or so of the summer term, and many a Cambridge team owed its efficiency to the strenuous practice which its members enjoyed against the redoubtable twins.

“In spite of the ‘extensive and peculiar’ record of their joint and several victories – they won upwards of thirty challenge cups outright, to say nothing of other prizes – the Allens never made good at the place of the supreme test. They had their favourite tournaments, at which they fancied themselves and consequently gave of their best. But Wimbledon was not one of them. As a matter of fact, they only played at Wimbledon twice – in 1896, when they reached the final of the doubles and were there beaten by Reginald Doherty and Hugh Nisbet, and in 1899, when they were so dissatisfied with what they did that they never tried again.

“Of course, it was their misfortune that they synchronised first with the Baddeleys and later with the Dohertys. Roy was appreciably the better singles player of the two, but, fine player though he was, he was never the equal of Wilfred Baddeley or of either Doherty. Neither were the Allens, as a pair, the equal of the Baddeleys or the Dohertys, though there was not a very great deal in it when they were smashing properly. But there were times when they were distinctly ‘lobbable’.

“They represented England in an isolated match against Ireland in 1894; but the statement which has been freely circulated in the press that they frequently represented their country in the Davis Cup is wholly incorrect. They never played in the Davis Cup, chiefly because (as has been indicated above) they were not so strong either in singles or doubles as the Dohertys. Their best years were from 1891, when they came down from Cambridge, to about 1907 – a good long spell. After that, Charlie began to decline somewhat, but Roy, except that he tired more rapidly, kept up his form wonderfully.

“Even as late as 1914, they were the holders, between them, of about twenty challenge cups, and Roy in 1913 beat Theodore Mavrogordato and Stanley Doust at Hythe on the same day, whilst at Eastbourne Roy won the veterans’ championship and the doubles championship with his brother for four consecutive years (1909-12), beating amongst others Arthur Gore (to whom he was conceding 1/6, being a year younger) in 1910.

“A more ‘one and indivisible’ pair of twins (except the Siamese twins) has never existed. They had all things in common, including a common purse. When they met in singles one – usually Charlie, because Roy was the stronger player – invariably retired in favour of the other, and if one happened to be engaged in a ‘hard’ match the other always contrived to be near at hand (if he could) to minister to his wants, and spur him on to victory, and whatever they did, whether individually or as a pair, it was always ‘we’ who did it.

“Charlie, as the ‘senior’ twin, conducted all their lawn tennis correspondence while they were in England; while they were abroad the work was carried on by Roy who, however, signed himself ‘C.G. Allen’. Although as a change from their favourite winter occupation – they played no winter lawn tennis except abroad – they occasionally indulged in a game of badminton, lawn tennis was the only game they really cared about, and one of the quaintest of their many quaint sayings was that to play golf was to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk.”
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