Maureen Mockford
Maureen Mockford was a Northern Irish badminton player and bowler.
Biography
Maureen Mockford was born Maureen Phyllis Perry to Phyllis and George Perry MBE on 27 March 1942. George, from Renfrew in Glasgow, played football for Belfast Celtic and was part of the 1925/26 quadruple winning team. He worked as the assistant manager in the electrical department at Harland and Wolff and received an MBE in the 1958 New Years Honours for services to shipbuilding. He met Phyllis who was a draughts woman at Harland and Wolff. She has an older brother Raymond and a twin sister Pamela. Pam was her doubles partner throughout her early playing days at Belfast High School and Malone Badminton club. In the late '60s and early '70s Malone dominated the Ulster and Irish badminton scene with players like Maureen, Pam, Maurice Adamson, Derek Porter, Joan Simpson, Adrian Bell, Colin Bell and Robert Bruce, all representing the club at National and International level. In 1970 she won the Irish National Badminton Championships, playing alongside Dorothy Haslam, Joan Simpson, and Pam Porter. In the same year she played in the British Commonwealth Games with Joan McCloy in the women's doubles, and came 17th in the women's singles. She played on the Irish national badminton team 18 times between 1961 and 1970. She married Anthony James Mockford in 1966 and had 4 children, Colin, twins Brian and Steven and Alison. She later took up bowling, competing in Irish trials. She died on 12 January 2008 due to complications from acute myeloid leukaemia.