Ron Barney: 1929-2022. An appreciation of his life

by Julian Wellings | 4 February 2022 | Lives remembered

By Steve Evans

We are sad to report the death of long-standing East Glos member Ron Barney at the age of 92. Ron was a member for more than 20 years and represented both club and county at tennis.

With Ron’s passing, we have lost a man for whom the phrase ‘a life well lived’ might well have been invented.

Most of us know Ron only as an excellent tennis player at county and national level, but his sporting prowess in earlier years extended well beyond that and included selection for the GB Olympic bobsleigh team!

Ron was born on 10th March 1929 in Portobello Road, London. At the age of three, he met Betty, who became his wife, when their fathers played for the same cricket team.

Ron attended Harrow County School for Boys and excelled in all sports except rugby, so he persuaded the school to introduce football to the curriculum so that he could play that instead. He represented the school in athletics and cricket. His final report says that he organised the sixth form dance! Cricket was always a great passion, and Ron became a fast bowler for Middlesex second team, working as a groundsman to earn some money.

Ron joined the RAF in Suffolk for his two years National Service in 1947. During this time, he represented the RAF in athletics. Because he was an excellent sprinter, Ron was also selected to be in the GB four-man bobsleigh team for the Winter Olympics in 1948. Daughter Jill reports, “He watched a film of a bobsleigh run and passed out! Then withdrew himself from the team.”

Moving to Watford with Betty after their wedding in 1951, Ron was looking for a new sport to take up. Betty played tennis and taught Ron how to play. He went on to be chairman of Oxhey club and play in St. Albans and represent Hertfordshire.

Ron played table tennis for clubs in Watford and also for Middlesex, winning many singles and doubles tournaments. He also played snooker regularly, which continued until he became ill in 2020.

In the mid-eighties, Ron and Betty moved to Gloucestershire. He became a member of East Glos Club a few years later, where he made many friends and enjoyed years of playing tennis into his late eighties. When not on the courts or in the bar, he could often be found playing cribbage with his friends. Ron was club chairman from 2004 to 2007. In 2014 he won the over-85 national men’s doubles tennis tournament at Wimbledon, giving him a position of 19 in the ITF world rankings.

He was a lifelong Queens Park Rangers supporter as he was born in the vicinity, and his father used to take him regularly from about the age of four. He was still asking about Rangers’ position in the league up until the end of his life and watching them on tv.

Ron’s son Mike said, “Although Dad attained various sporting accolades as he got older, the one thing he said he could not attain was a musical accomplishment (like his father.) This despite trying five different musical instruments, including a violin. He did, however, persevere to a decent standard with tap dancing and apparently wore out a patch in the sitting room lino, according to his mother.”

Ron was still playing tennis until nearly 90 and still looking upright and immaculate. Eventually, due to ill health, both he and Betty moved into care. He is survived by Betty, daughter Jill (Jill Jones, East Glos member), three sons, eight grandchildren, one of whom won an East Glos junior championship, and seven great-grandchildren.

Ron died on 29th January at Richmond Village care home in Cheltenham, where he enhanced his legendary status by being the only resident with a wine fridge in his room. There will be a private funeral for Ron.

Ron Barney: family man, sportsman, raconteur and friend, we raise a glass to your memory.