Sean Pontin has been working the manual scoreboards – also known as draw boards – at Wimbledon since 1988, a tradition which he has begun to pass down to his children.
His son Luke has worked alongside him for the past nine years. His daughter Jenna joined the team for this year’s event and his youngest daughter Taryn is due to make the trip in 2022.
The team watch live scores from the event come through on a computer screen before printing the players’ names and scores onto yellow metal nameplates and slotting them onto the manual draw board.
Mr Pontin, who has lived in the Island for the past 15 years and is the chief executive at disability charity Enable Jersey, grew up playing tennis in Surrey and at 18 was offered the chance to help some of his friends with the scoreboards at Wimbledon – something he said had been a ‘great honour and tradition’ to carry on for over 30 years.
‘I never expected to keep coming back and managing the draw boards every year but it has been amazing to be a part of what is considered the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament. I have only ever missed one Wimbledon event since I started, which was in 1996 when my son was born,’ he said.
‘Tradition is really important at Wimbledon and even though a lot of things are done electronically, we will always manually print names and put them on the draw board. The board is an important part of the event’s history and the names actually stay in place for a whole year after the tournament and are part of the museum tour of the club which you can do.’
Mr Pontin is hoping that Wimbledon 2022 will be his last event before handing over the responsibility to his children.
‘I have done it for a while now but I want to make sure I get to work it with all of my kids at once before passing the baton to them and the rest of the team,’ he said.
Despite attending numerous Wimbledon events, Mr Pontin is yet to have the chance to watch a full tennis match.
‘We are always working so we do not get to watch a full match,’ he said. ‘We get to see parts of the tournament but what is most special is getting to see the players practise and the behind-the-scenes stuff which most people don’t see. I have seen players from Boris Becker all the way through to Roger Federer and Andy Murray and it so special to see them away from the cameras.’
