Three all.
The critical moment was past. Stanski’s confidence was high. He wiped his forehead with his wristband, tossed the ball up and served an ace that Bjorn Borg himself would have been incapable of reaching. From that moment, Voronin was doomed. Stanski was nerveless, accurate, domineering. He took the game to love. He dropped only one point in winning the next two. It was over. The crowd was in ecstasy. Voronin walked to the side without shaking hands, slung his racquets into his bag and left the court without waiting for his opponent — which is always regarded as bad form at Wimbledon. Some of the crowd booed him.
Stanski seemed to be taking longer than usual in packing up. He lingered by the net-post looking down, repeatedly dragging his foot across the worn patch of turf and raising dust. Then he bent and picked something up that to me looked liked like one of the needles my mother used on her sewing-machine. After staring at it for some time he showed it to the umpire, who had descended from his chair. At the same time he pointed to a scratch on his forearm. The umpire nodded indulgently and I heard him promise to speak to the groundsman.
I learned next day that Stanski was ill and had withdrawn from the tournament. It was a disappointment to everyone, because he had seemed to be on a roll and might have put out one of the seeds in a later round.
Two days after, the world of tennis was shocked to learn that Jozsef Stanski had died. He’d been admitted to St Thomas’s complaining of weakness, vomiting and a high temperature. His pulse-rate was abnormally high and his lymph glands were swollen. There was an area of hardening under the scratch on his right forearm. In the night, his pulse rose to almost two hundred a minute and his temperature fell sharply. He was taken into intensive care and treated for septicaemia. Tests showed an exceptionally high count of white blood cells. Blood was appearing in his vomit and he was having difficulty in passing water, suggesting damage to the kidneys.
The next day an electrocardiogram indicated further critical problems, this time with the heart. Attempts were made to fit a pacemaker, but he died whilst under the anaesthetic. It was announced that a post mortem would be held the following day.
I’m bound to admit that these medical details only came to my attention years later, through my interest in the case. At the time it happened, I was wholly taken up with my duties at Wimbledon, programmed by the Brigadier to let nothing distract me. We were soon into the second week and the crowds grew steadily, with most interest on the show courts.
Eddie and I were picked for the men’s semi-finals and I had my first experience of the Centre Court in the greatest match ever played at Wimbledon, between Bjorn Borg, the champion for the previous five years, and Jimmy Connors. Borg came back from two sets down, love-six and four-six, to win with a display of skill and guts that finally wore down the seemingly unstoppable Connors. I will go to my grave proud that I had a minor role in that epic.
I’m proud, also, that I was one of the ball boys in the final, though the match lacked passion and didn’t quite live up to its promise. John McEnroe deserved his Championship, but we all felt Borg had fired his best shots in the semi.
Like Borg, I was forced to choke back some disappointment that afternoon. I’d secretly hoped to be named best ball boy, but a kid from another school was picked by the Brigadier. My pal Eddie (who wasn’t on court for the final) put an arm around my shoulder when it was over. We told each other that the kid had to be a brown-noser and the Brigadier’s nephew as well.
I may have heard something later on radio or television about the post mortem on poor Jozsef Stanski. They concluded he died from blood-poisoning. Samples were sent for further analysis, but the lab couldn’t trace the source. At the inquest, a pathologist mentioned the scratch on the arm and said some sharp point had dug quite deeply into the flesh. The match umpire gave evidence and spoke of the needle Stanski had picked up. He described the small eye close to the point. Unfortunately the needle had not been seen since the day of the match. In summing up, the coroner said it would not be helpful to speculate about the needle. The match had been played in full view of a large crowd and there was no evidence of anyone attempting to cause Stanski’s death.
Huge controversy surrounded the verdict. The international press made a lot of the incident, pointing out that as recently as 1978 a Bulgarian writer, Georgi Markov, a rebel against his Communist government, had been executed in a London street by a tiny poison pellet forced into his thigh, apparently by the tip of an umbrella. The poison used was ricin, a protein derived from the castor oil seed, deadly and in those days almost undetectable in the human bloodstream. He took four days to die, protesting that he was the victim of political assassination. Nobody except his wife took him seriously until after he died. The presence of the poison was only discovered because the pellet was still embedded in a piece of Markov’s flesh sent for analysis. If ricin could be injected in a public street using an umbrella, was it so fanciful to suggest Jozsef Stansky was targeted by the KGB and poisoned at Wimbledon two years later?
In Poland, the first months of 1981 had been extremely tense. A new Prime Minister, General Jaruzelski, had taken over and a permanent committee was set up to liaise with Solidarity. Moscow was incensed by this outbreak of liberalism and summoned Jaruzelski and his team to the Kremlin. The Politburo made its anger known. Repression followed. Many trade union activists were beaten up.
The papers noted that Stanski’s opponent Voronin had quit Britain by an Aeroflot plane the same evening he had lost. He was unavailable for comment, in spite of strenuous efforts by reporters. The Soviet crackdown on Solidarity was mentioned. It was widely suspected that the KGB had been monitoring Stanski for over a year. He was believed to be acting as a conduit to the free world for Walesa and his organisation. At the end of the year, martial law was imposed in Poland and the leaders of Solidarity were detained and union activity suspended.
Although nothing was announced officially, the press claimed Scotland Yard investigated the assassination theory and kept the file open.
Since the Cold War ended and the Soviet bloc disintegrated, it is hard to think oneself back into the oppression of those days, harder still to believe orders may have been given for one tennis player to execute another at the world’s top tournament.
In the years since, I kept an open mind about the incident, troubled to think murder may have happened so close to me. In my mind’s eye I can still see Stanski rubbing his arm and reaching for the water I poured.
Then, last April, I had a phone call from Eddie Pringle. I hadn’t seen him in almost twenty years. He was coming my way on a trip and wondered if we might meet for a drink.
To be truthful, I wasn’t all that keen. I couldn’t imagine we had much in common these days. Eddie seemed to sense my reluctance, because he went on to say, “I wouldn’t take up your time if it wasn’t important — well, important to me, if not to you. I’m not on the cadge, by the way. I’m asking no favours except for one half-hour of your time.”
How could I refuse?
We arranged to meet in the bar of a local hotel. I told him I have a beard these days and what I would wear, just in case we didn’t recognise each other.
I certainly wouldn’t have known Eddie if he hadn’t come up to me and spoken my name. He was gaunt, hairless and on two sticks.
“Sorry,” he said. “Chemo. Didn’t like to tell you on the phone in case I put you off.”