The ‘Battle of the Surfaces’ and becoming a republic

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Sporting Witness and Witness History programmes.

We hear about the half-clay, half-grass exhibition match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Then, we look back through the archives to find out how Greece held a referendum to decide the country’s future.

Next, a mountain massacre on the Himalayas in Pakistan.

Plus, India’s coal-mine rescue.

And, how a mother successfully campaigned to change her child’s gender on official documents in Argentina.

Contributors:

Pablo del Campo – creative entrepreneur and tennis fan.

Fiona Skillen – Professor of Sports History at Glasgow Caledonian University.

BBC Archives.

Aleksandra Dzik – Polish mountaineer.

Sarpreet Singh Gill – Jaswant Singh Gill’s son.

Gabriela Mansilla – Luana’s mother.

(Photo: 'The Battle of the Surfaces' at The Palma Arena on May 2, 2007 in Mallorca. Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:13.7	This week, the late King of Greece on the vote that ended his reign.
0:18.0	It hurts simply because you've had a vote that didn't go your way, but it
0:22.6	ceases hurting when you know how that vote came about and the circumstances which brought it about,
0:27.2	and then you live with it. Plus, a high-altitude massacre in the Himalayas. I remember hearing
0:32.1	the guy, it was my friend from Azerbaijan, he said there were Taliban in Baiscom and they killed all the
0:39.2	people. I remember this belief. No, it couldn't happen. And the hero of a daring mission to rescue
0:44.5	trapped miners in India. But that was not an astronaut. So at one time, he did feel that maybe this is
0:53.9	not the right decision.
0:55.0	Maybe I should go back.
0:57.1	That's all coming up later in the podcast.
0:59.4	But first, a memorable moment from the world of professional tennis.
1:03.6	Many will recall, or will have heard about, the Battle of the Sexes,
1:07.0	the much-hyped match in 1973 between Billy Jean King
1:11.3	and the former world number one men's player Bobby Riggs.
1:14.7	More on that later.
1:15.8	But what about the battle of the surfaces?
1:18.5	Some players are better on grass and some on clay.
1:22.1	There have been obvious recent contenders for being the best on each, but not both.
1:26.7	Here's Uma Deriswamy.
1:30.3	The king of grass was Roger Federer, and the king of clay was Raffa Nadal. And for a long time,
1:37.5	when they played each other and stuck to their own preferred surface, they won. So if that was the
	...

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