John Curry, businessman whose expertise was crucial as the All England Club entered the modern era

He expanded the site, oversaw the construction of the Centre Court’s retractable roof and swelled the Club’s coffers

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John Curry, who has died aged 86, was a popular and far-sighted chairman of the All England Club throughout the 1990s, transforming its fortunes through his financial acumen and strength of character. He led the Club successfully into a far more professional era, instigating major building projects and consolidating Wimbledon’s status as the world’s greatest tennis tournament.
Among the thousands of hours he spent on All England business, he also found time to run two major technology firms, Unitech and Acal, and from the 1960s he was a central figure in the evolution of the UK electronics industry.
John Arthur Hugh Curry was born on June 7 1938 in Burma (now Myanmar), the youngest of three sons of Alfred Robert Curry, who as a near-penniless but ambitious young Cockney plumber had travelled to India and then to Burma. His marriage to a well-connected scion of a Raj family, Mercia, née Friedlander, a relative of the Boer General Jan Smuts, crossed the class divide, but the pair’s shared values of integrity and hard work created an aspirational, close-knit family and their three boys went on to great success in business and the Army.
Alfred Curry became a gifted civil engineer, and during the Second World War was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in the Burma Sappers and Miners. When the capital Rangoon (now Yangon) fell to the Japanese in 1942 he was one of the last to get out, reputedly escaping by sailing a sampan down the Irrawaddy and being picked up by a troop ship.
After the war the family returned to Rangoon, where Alfred was closely involved in rebuilding the city. The three boys, all intelligent and sporty, later attended King’s College School, Wimbledon, where John’s love of tennis was fostered by proximity to the All England Club.
He won the Public Schools Championships and was a quarter-finalist at Junior Wimbledon, also excelling at hockey, and rugby, which he played for Surrey Schools and later Richmond. After following his brother Peter as head boy, he went up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, to read politics, philosophy and economics. He spent much of his time on the games field, captaining the university at tennis and gaining a rugby Blue as a forward, despite being a relatively slight 14 stone.
While an undergraduate, he fell in love with a vivacious young nurse, Anne Lewis, and they married in 1962. Although not a tennis player, she proved a supportive wife whose friendliness and attention to detail later helped to create a lively, welcoming atmosphere among the VIPs, royals and celebrity guests in the Wimbledon Royal Box.
After qualifying as a chartered accountant, having been articled to the father of the Wimbledon finalist Christine Truman, Curry studied for an MBA at Harvard, achieving a Distinction and winning the Outstanding Foreign Student Award. One regret during his time in the US was having to turn down the offer of a place on an international rugby squad.
In 1966, he became finance director of Unitech, a company founded by his brother Peter which helped to shape Britain’s industrial electronics landscape for the next 30 years.
In 1986 Curry launched a Europe-wide technology distribution company, Acal, which achieved a public listing in 1993. Within two decades, after a string of acquisitions, Acal had become a leading niche distributor in the UK and Europe. Although Curry stepped down after a stroke in 2005 he remained a strong influence on the business.
His love of sport had continued unabated, and when he was made a full member of the All England Club in 1971, the committee quickly spotted his financial expertise and leadership skills and he was made chairman in 1989.
He steered the Club through a crucial period of its development, including a major redevelopment of the grounds, the building of the retractable roof on Centre Court, and the new Number 1 Court. It was no coincidence that the Championships’ surplus, which had been little more than £300,000 when he joined the committee, had soared to more than £30 million by the time he stood down as chairman 20 years later.
Chris Gorringe, chief executive at the time, recalled Curry as an outstanding mentor, approachable but tough, and not someone who suffered fools gladly: “What impressed me was his ability to come to a decision swiftly and decisively, and nine times out of 10 it was the right decision. It’s very rare to find someone in a high-profile role like that who doesn’t consult endlessly. People undervalue how much he helped the LTA, too. He helped them get their current ground through negotiations with the Bank of England, and also in the international sphere.”
Renowned for his prescience, Curry oversaw a string of forward-looking initiatives: the Club’s purchases of the freeholds of Wimbledon Park golf course in 1993 and then of the Southlands College site, now the site of the Club’s croquet lawns. He also masterminded the purchase of the site at Raynes Park which is now the Club’s Community Tennis Centre.
He helped to introduce play on Middle Sunday for the first time in 1991 and again in 1997, and tightened Wimbledon’s already strict clothing code for players. This switched from “Predominantly White” to “Almost Entirely White” in 1995, to the delight of tennis traditionalists.
Despite his punishing workload, he remained a highly competitive player himself, and he often reminisced about partnering Chris Gorringe to a famous victory in a mixed doubles challenge in Tokyo against the Wimbledon champion Virginia Wade and the star sports agent Mark McCormack. The secret, he later revealed, was to direct the bulk of the play at McCormack, a passionate tennis nut but only a moderate player.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer around the year 2000 and given five years to live, Curry simply ignored the bleak prognosis and for almost a quarter of a century continued to “fill the unforgiving minute” as enthusiastically as ever. He took pride in the achievements of his daughter and three sons, two of whom likewise pursued successful careers in finance, and he enjoyed country life on the family’s 300-acre estate in Hampshire.
“John was a very likeable, honourable man, a good, solid player, very consistent and a jovial partner,” said Tim Phillips, who succeeded him as chairman. “He was mischievous – he loved saying something controversial with a big smile on his face and getting away with it.”
Curry was appointed CBE in 1997 and made an honorary life vice-president of the Club when he stepped down as chairman. He is survived by his wife Anne and their four children.
John Curry, born June 7 1938, died October 19 2024
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