Christopher "Buster" Mottram (born 25 April 1955 in

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...

) is an English former

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

player and UK number 1 who achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 15 in February 1983. Mottram represented Great Britain in the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organi ...

eight times, scoring 31 wins and 10 losses. His parents,

Tony Mottram Anthony John Mottram (8 June 1920 – 6 October 2016) was a British tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s. Mottram reached the quarterfinal of the 1948 Wimbledon Championships in which he lost to Gardnar Mulloy. In the doubles event he reac ...

and Joy Gannon, were leading British tennis players in the 1950s.

Career titles

Singles (2)

Doubles (5)

Politics

While Mottram was still playing professionally, he became known for his

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

views. He expressed support for the National Front, supported the policies of

Enoch Powell John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...

,"Tennis: Whatever happened to Buster Mottram?"
''The Independent'', 18 May 2002 and applied unsuccessfully for the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

parliamentary candidacy in several constituencies. He subsequently formed a songwriting partnership with the black entertainer Kenny Lynch writing the song "Average Man". In November 2008, he was expelled from the

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...

(UKIP) after attempting to broker an electoral pact with the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...

. UKIP leader

Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...

called Mottram's offer "astonishing", declaring the party to be non-racist.UKIP rejects BNP electoral offer
BBC News, 3 November 2008.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mottram, Buster 1955 births Living people English male tennis players People educated at King's College School, London French Open junior champions People from Kingston upon Thames British male tennis players Tennis people from Greater London Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' singles