Multiple world and European veterans champion and former England international Betty Bird has been described as a legend and an icon after passing away at the age of 90.
Although Betty (pictured above in action at the European Veterans’ Championships in 2022) had moved to Australia many years ago, she retained close links with her friends in the English table tennis community and continued to be a member of VETTS and to represent England in international competitions, with huge success.
Only last year, Betty won the WD90 class at the ITTF World Masters Championships in Rome, alongside Marianne Blasberg of Germany, as well as taking silver in the WS90 class, losing out to her partner in the final.
She was looking forward to competing in the Over-90s category at the upcoming European Veterans’ Championships in Novi Sad, Serbia, in June.
Betty Bird (nee Isaacs) was born in Camberwell, London, on 19 July 1934 and represented Middlesex, Surrey, Cambridgeshire and Kent during her career – though she made her England debut before first playing for Surrey!
That match was against Wales at Bolton on 26 November, 1954, winning her singles and doubles alongside Pam Mortimer to help England to a 7-2 victory. She went on to make 18 appearances between 1954 and 1956.
Betty competed at the World Championships at Wembley in 1954, where she reached the last 16 of the Women’s Singles and Women’s Doubles (alongside Ella Zeller of Romania) and the last 32 of the Mixed Doubles, alongside Ivor Jones.
Her best performance at the English Open was reaching the Women’s Doubles semi-finals in 1960, playing with B Simons of the Netherlands. She reached the singles quarter-finals on four occasions.
At the National Championships, she was Women’s Doubles runner-up alongside Jean Harrower in 1960 – losing out to Jill Rook (Mills) & Diane Rowe – and in 1962 with Joyce Fielder, being defeated by Mills & Ros Rowe. She was twice a Women’s Singles quarter-finalist.
She was also joint winner of the National Top 10 in 1959 and runner-up in the National Team Championships in 1955/56, representing South London League along with Jean Head (Winn) and Jill Rook.
Betty reached No 2 in the England Senior rankings before emigrating to Australia, where she also became at international player – she reach No 1 in the rankings there in 1970 and 1975.
She continued to have success, winning the Sir Mark L Mitchell Trophy as South Australia’s player of the year in 1982, along with the Alan Lyon Trophy for the ‘best and fairest’ in women’s team competition in the same year.
During her illustrious career, Betty defeated multiple world champion Gizi Farkas of Hungary on three occasions.
But Betty will perhaps be best remembered for her huge success in the Veteran ranks, at both European and world level, winning a combined 12 gold medals across the competitions and age groups, plus 10 silvers and 16 bronzes, from the 1990s until last year.
Her world titles included O60 Women’s Doubles in Vancouver in 2000 (with Jean White); O75 Women’s Singles in 2011/12 in Stockholm; O80 Women’s Singles in 2015/16 in Alicante; WD85 in 2023 in Muscat and WD90 in 2024 in Rome (both with Marianne Blasberg).
At European level, Betty won the following golds: O60 Women’s Doubles 1999; O65 Women’s Doubles 2003; O75 Women’s Doubles 2013; O80 Women’s Doubles 2016/17 (with Jean White); O85 Women’s Singles and O85 Women’s Doubles (with Blasberg) 2018/19; O85 Women’s Doubles 2023 (with Blasberg).
VETTS Chairman, Susie Venner, said: “Betty was a legend in the veteran table tennis community. Although she moved to Australia many years ago, she retained her close connections with her many friends in England and abroad through her membership of the VETTS and her participation in international veterans’ competitions.
“Betty won numerous medals at the European and World Veterans Championships and still fought as hard on the table now as she did in her youth.
“Many tributes have been paid to her from her friends in the VETTS and words like ‘legend’, ‘icon’, ‘great ambassador for the sport’ and ‘inspiration’ are a fitting description of Betty and the impact she had on table tennis – and that table tennis had on her – throughout her life.”
