Tag: Middlesex University Real Tennis Club

Reality Meets NewsRevue At Lord’s, 2 to 10 November 2022

Chris Rowe & Ian Harris At Lord’s, Photo by Nat Cherry

A plethora of real tennis at Lord’s in early November:

  • skills night, which I now “match manage”;
  • a match between the MCC and Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC), which I somehow found myself captaining/match managing for the MCC;
  • a long-in-the-planning “friendly” with fellow NewsRevue alum Chris Rowe.

Skills Night, 2 November 2022

I explained how I “inherited” responsibility for skills night from Johnny Whiting in my review of last year’s event, click here or below:

Back To Life, Back To Reality… Almost, November 2021

This year’s event was no less exceptional, with fun and fabulous prizes on offer, ranging from a half-exploded can of Irn Brew (don’t ask) to a most valuable player award of $500,000,000. The winners got proper bottles of Pol Roger (other fizzy drinks are available) and chocolates. The wooden spoon has now been emblazoned in the form of the coveted Hinds Trophy.

MCC Members can read all about skills night and tennis generally here. Should anything ever go awry with that link, a scrape of my match report can be found here.

MCC v MURTC, 9 November 2022

Those who know me well from school etc. know that I am unaccustomed to being a sports team captain. I was more likely to be the chap waving his hand wildly at the captain saying, “me, me, me” in the hope of being spotted and picked. But Carl Snitcher, the MCC captain for this match, needed to be elsewhere and I got the call about 10 days before the match to step in and “lead”.

Leadership in this instance merely comprised turning up, badgering people into paying their match fees and shouting “come on MCC” at regular intervals during the match.

It was also still my role to play in the fourth rubber of this five rubber match, renewing my partnership with John Thirlwell, whom I hadn’t partnered since before the pandemic.

Thirlwell and Harris snapped in the dedans on a previous match evening

John and I tried to get back into practice together by playing singles against each other the week before (a superb, close bout) and a practice doubles as a pair the day before the MURTC fixture. But all that was to no avail in the matter of winning our rubber on the big night. Still, we made a close match of it and the fixture as a whole was won by the MCC, albeit by the narrowest of margins in the final rubber, to take the match 3-2.

Those interested enough can watch the entire match – all six hours of it – on the MCC Real Tennis YouTube channel through the link below. Compelling is not the word for this viewing.

As Walt Whitman put it, no doubt thinking of match managing a real tennis match, not Abe Lincoln or anything of that sort:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…

NewsRevue Inspired Comedy Singles: Chris Rowe v Ian Harris, 9 November 2022

Soon after taking up real tennis in 2016, I ran into Chris Stanton in the dedans gallery at Lord’s. I had known Chris from NewsRevue since 1992, when I started writing for that show and John Random chose one of my pieces for Chris Stanton to perform, making “Stanny” the first professional actor to perform my material on stage. That, together with the connection with fellow NewsRevue alum Chris Rowe, is explained in my Chris Stanton obituary piece click here or below:

Chris Stanton: Absurdist & Realist, A Personal Tribute, 9 March 2020

Chris Rowe was a good friend of Stanny’s but a little before my time in NewsRevue…

Stanny & Rowy, 1991 NewsRevue Edinburgh Run

…as I understand it, Chris Rowe introduced Chris Stanton to real tennis at Lord’s, although they had rarely played together in recent years; indeed Chris Rowe had/has played hardly at all for several years.

When Chris Rowe and I communicated and eventually met after Stanny’s sad demise, we resolved that we really should have a game of tennis together.

Eventually that idea came to fruition this very day. It was to be Chris Rowe’s first proper game of singles for some considerable time, although he made sure to have a hit with one of the pros by way of preparation.

Despite Chris’s handicap on paper being far better than mine, the pros thought that, taking dormancy into account, we should play level and see what happens.

It was actually a very good match playing level, with deuces galore and lots of good rests (which is real tennis speak for rallies).

Unfortunately, the CCTV cameras wee not recording our match for posterity, so I cannot show you any clips from the actual singles bout in question, but I can assure you that the level was much higher than my doubles level the day before…

…but I would say that, wouldn’t I?

In the absence of footage from the actual match, I thought the following highlights reel is as close as I can get to illustrating the sort of skills on show that day. Below is a six minute thrillathon, which you might prefer to the six hour marathon of the MCC v MURTC match above:

Actually, there were probably elements of the Rowe v Harris match that might be seen as comedy tennis, in particular when one of us (usually me) got caught in an “it’s behind you” position, unable to call my own chase.

We also both managed an array of “characters” correcting the chase calls and devising arcane etiquette on the fly…

…since you last played here, my good fellow, the MCC Committee has deemed it to be ungentlemanly conduct to make a chap run around the court like that and then take the point from him…

…that sort of thing.

But then, as I said when I first met Chris Stanton at Lord’s:

If John Random were to consider inventing an ancient game with bizarre, arcane rules, for comedy purposes, he need look no further than the actual laws of real tennis.

Joking apart, it was such a pleasure finally to play tennis with Chris Rowe having plotted to do so for so long. I hope we’ll do it again. Although, if he gets back into practice, Chris will need to be giving me quite a few handicap points for sure.

As “So-Called Freedom Day” Came & Went, We Indulged In Some Cricket & A Bit Of Low Key Socialising, 7 July To 6 August 2021

It was a strange period; the height of summer in regular times but the autumn of the pandemic, as it were.

The government had signalled a possible “relaxing of pandemic restrictions” for towards the end of June, but the highly infectious delta variant of Covid 19 led to the deferral of that “freedom day” until 19 July.

There was much re-jigging of diaries and arrangements in the weeks leading up to and following the revised date.

For the most part, Janie and I carried on doing what we had been doing during partial lockdown: working, volunteering and playing tennis.

Middlesex v Leicestershire, Merchant Taylors’ School, 12 & 13 July 2021

The plan was for me and Janie to go with Fran & Simon on Monday 12 July, but plans have a habit of going awry. The weather forecast for the Monday was awful and indeed it was heaving down with rain in Ealing.

Janie and I abandoned all hope of going to the game by mid afternoon, despite the fact that the rain was mysteriously dodging Northwood and play was taking place beneath leaden skies.

I’m rather glad we did decide to bale out of going, as I learnt the next day that it took people from Ealing/Acton way a couple of hours to get home due to the flash floods.

Simon ended up watching some rather good cricket solo on the Monday, while I ended up doing similar on the Tuesday.

I had arranged to play real tennis at Middlesex University early on the Tuesday morning and went on from there to MTS for my first sight of live county cricket since September 2019.

The Fag End Of The Cricket Season, Lord’s, 23 to 25 September 2019

Social distancing was still the order of the day, so I sat in a reserved area and was suitably reserved.

We were allowed to stroll a bit, which enabled me to encounter some of “the usual suspects”, such as Barmy Kev and Jeff Coleman, who for some obscure reason were bemoaning Middlesex’s poor play and poor luck this season.

I tried to cheer myself up by reading The Economist, which for some obscure reason was bemoaning the economic devastation caused by the global pandemic.

Middlesex were in a bit of a hole second dig, so I do understand why people were pessimistic, especially as Middlesex had been snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory all season. Still, I was strangely optimistic about Middlesex’s position given my previous experiences of seeing teams bat last at MTS.

For once, I called it right – click here for the match scorecard .

Ealing Samaritans Gunnersbury Park Party, Tuesday 20 July 2021

Janie had hardly met any of her new Samaritans colleagues before, other than in an “on shift” context, as she had done all of her training by Zoom and they had not been able to meet socially during lockdown.

So the “party in the park” idea seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet some more people…

…which indeed it was. It was just a shame that, apart from Janie and Ilkay, whom Janie had already befriended and met, no-one from their traning group attended that night.

Still, Alison Shindler (coincidentally an old friend of mine from BBYO, as reported here) was there with her husband Joe, which was fun. We met some other very nice Samaritans volunteer folk including some of the Ealing grandees.

Janie was so late back from work, however, that we missed the entertainment for the evening, Marie Naffah, who was doing 50 gigs in 50 days, apparently. We arrived just in time to say goodbye to her, so for now the video below will have to do.

The Hundred: London Spirit v Oval Invincibles Double Header, Lord’s, Sunday 25 July 2021

In the end we only got to see half a double-header, as the weather closed in after the women’s match. What was predicted to be the possibility of some light showers turned out to be torrential rain and flash floods which caused havoc around London.

Mercifully, my weather app tipped me off before the weather got too bad.

I have reported the event for King Cricket, click here or below:

A report from the first day of the Hundred at Lord’s

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, a scrape of that article can be found here.

Despite shortened event due to the weather, we rather enjoyed ourselves. I had arranged to return for the midweek games myself and Janie was scheduled to join me on Finals Day, so we anticipated that we’d still get our fill of The Hundred.

Middlesex v Durham at Radlett, Tuesday 27 July 2021

Parking spaces at cricket grounds don’t get much more rural-idyllic than this

Janie and I had an early game of tennis, then met Simon at lunchtime/early afternoon at Radlett. I chatted briefly with Mike O’Farrell and others, holding up the process of finding some decent seats and settling in for some old-fashioned List A 50-overs-a-side cricket.

The weather sort-of smiled on us until mid to late afternoon, when a shower threatened to end proceedings but in any case was enough to scare us away from an exposed ground such as Radlett.

After the rain, a tense Duckworth-Lewis finish, which Janie and I watched on the stream at home. As has been the way this season, Middlesex were “close but no cigar”.

London Spirit v Trent Rockets, Double-Header, Lord’s 29 July 2021

In my desire to really check out The Hundred tournament, I had reserved a member’s place for myself at both of the midweek events at Lord’s. This was the first of them.

I enjoyed the women’s game from the pavilion terrace, where I was sitting right in front of the assembled rockets (as it were) while they waited to do their thing.

I was delighted to be invited to help choose the walk-on music for some of the players, although I didn’t recognise many of the bangin’ hits on offer.

I had planned to take in the men’s game from the sanctuary of the Upper Tavern Stand, but just before the end of the women’s game I was joined by Alvin, who then popped out to make a call before I had the chance to tell him my plans. So I watched the first innings of the men’s game from the pavilion, with Alvin, then relocated to the Tavern Stand for the final innings.

London Spirit did not do very well in these matches…

…women…

…and men.

Oh well.

Caroline, Alan & Jilly Visit Noddyland, 1 August 2021

A bouquet of yummy chocolate strawberries from Caroline

Long in the planning, it was super to see Caroline, Alan and Jilly after such a long time.

In fact, last time we saw Caroline & Alan for a meal, Janie and I were still full of Japan, as it were.

It’s summer, so Janie went for wild Alaskan salmon as the main, after some nibbles in the garden.

The afternoon and evening flew by, surprising us all when we realised that it was getting dark. That’s what tends to happen these days.

London Spirit v Northern Superchargers, Double-Header, Lord’s, 3 August 2021

An opportunity to watch some more cricket and get some reading done, I took in the second of the midweek The Hundred double-headers.

I decided to watch the women’s match from the Upper Allen stand and the men’s match from the Upper Tavern.

The women’s match was probably the best game (i.e. the most exciting game of cricket) I saw all tournament – see the scorecard here.

The men’s game probably the least exciting.

Oh well.

Pete Reynolds Memorial At Mosimann’s, 6 August 2021

Our first venture in a cab and our first indoor event since lockdown. Shirley was very keen that we join the event, as we (along with so many of their friends) had been unable to attend the funeral during lockdown.

Grace had organised the event wonderfully well. Mosimann’s is a stunning venue and was well suited to the occasion.

The speeches were heartfelt and moving, but it was mostly a party, which was, apparently, what Pete wanted. Pete usually got what he wanted in life, I believe, so he was certainly going to have what he wanted in this regard.

Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0

Four Seasons & Four Rainbows For Our London Cricket Trust Launch At Birchmere Park, 6 July 2021

Not just one rainbow but four: a very special event

Still emerging from lockdown, I have not spent a great deal of time face-to-face with people for some while.

Indeed, apart from the regular volunteering Janie & I do with FoodCycle, it has only been my Trustee activities with the London Cricket Trust (LCT) – putting cricket back into London’s parks – that has got me out and about since the partial re-opening.

On 18 May, for example, I visited my friend Rohan Candappa in Crouch End…

Crouch End’s equivalent of the bread line emerges daily outside the Sourdough Shop

… and then went on to meet Sophie Kent, one of the LCT Trustees, to take a look at Hornsey Cricket Club to discuss a prospective indoor cricket facility project (not an LCT one).

Half-close your eyes, wish and imagine…

On 9 June we had a face-to-face LCT meeting at The Oval. Dumbo, my car, was very excited at the opportunity to park within the hallowed grounds of The Oval, adding to his bucket-list collection of “cricket grounds within which I have parked”:

Why shouldn’t Dumbo have a bucket list like everyone else?

But I digress.

Birchmere Park via New Zealand, Hendon & The Woolwich Ferry

I started the day in New Zealand. Not physically of course, but I did Zoom over to Wellington for a short meeting on Z/Yen business.

Then I set off for Hendon, to Middlesex University for a game of real tennis, in which a sixteen-year-old utterly took me to pieces. I had pretty much been able to keep up with him a couple of weeks ago, but his regular play post GCSEs and the rapid improvement available only to people 40 or more years younger than me means that he is at least 10 handicap points better than me now and shall soon sail off into the stratosphere of only wanting to play with serious sporty folk and pros.

It doesn’t get much better than this

Having allowed bags of time to get to Birchmere Park in Thamesmead, I trusted Waze to sat nav me there and was led to expect to arrive more than an hour before the event, via the Woolwich Ferry. Time for a wander around when I get there, I thought.

I had never attempted the Woolwich Ferry before. My only real knowledge of it, from my youth until this day, was traffic announcements on Capital Radio & Radio London saying that only one ferry was operating and that there were hour-long queues as a result.

I didn’t listen to the radio on my journey from North-West to South-East London. Why should I? The sat nav does that traffic guidance job these days…

…except that the sat nav clearly didn’t know that today, as in my radio-listening days of yore, the ferry was operating with just one boat and the queues were some 40 minutes long.

The Woolwich Ferry from a Dumbo perspective

Still, it was another tick on my bucket-list and Dumbo was very excited to travel by boat again, for the first time since his trip to Ireland with us six years ago.

Fortunately I had allowed so much extra time for this journey, even with the long wait for the ferry, I still arrived at Birchmere Park about half-an-hour before the event.

New Zealanders have an expression for their weather – all four seasons in one day – which can apply to English weather too and certainly did apply on this day. In fact, I think I can safely say that I experienced all four seasons in one two-hour journey from Hendon to Thamesmead.

By the time I arrived at Birchmere Park it was unquestionably the rainy season. It was bucketing down.

My trusty weather app suggested that the rain would ease off after about 15 minutes and even suggested that it should stop completely to allow us a 45 minute event in dry weather.

And so it was. The weather smiled on us for our launch. Only the multiple rainbows in my picture present clues to the changeable weather on that afternoon.

As the Trustee of a cricket charity that is putting dozens of non-turf pitches into parks around London, I am glad to point out that only a non-turf pitch would be playable just a few minutes after the sort of deluge we experienced that afternoon.

Can you see the join?

These cricket pitch projects tend to need several organisations to come together. In this case, not only the LCT, the ECB and the local (Greenwich) council, but also Peabody and in particular its Thamesmead Regeneration arm. It was very interesting to meet the various dignitaries and activists from the area. I also sensed genuine interest in progressing more projects of this kind in that corner of Greater London.

I took my stroll around after the main event. Birchmere Park is a charming place with a lake and plenty of bird life on the far side of the park.

Birchmere Park lake – a lovely, peaceful spot

A Real Nailbiter Of A Finish, MCC v MURTC, Lord’s, 13 November 2019

It’s not very often I play in a match that is determined by the very last point or the very last ball, especially in my favourite sports, tennis & cricket. Professional matches occasionally conjure up such a nailbiter – this year seems to have been a bit of a year for it…

The Day England Won The Cricket World Cup, England v New Zealand, 14 July 2019

…and I did once, in 2005, play in a hugely exciting, tied charity cricket match that lives long in my memory:

Far And Away The Most Exciting Game Of Cricket I Have Ever Played, Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley, 31 July 2005

…but I digress.

On arrrival at Lord’s for the 2019 MCC v MURTC fixture, I encountered Jonathan Ellis-Miller, one of the MCC regulars for this fixture, looking uncharcteristically glum. He was bemoaning the fact that MURTC had conjured up some big South African ringers for this match. I know all about this type of team selection, having been on the right and the wrong side of such shenanigans in charity cricket matches many times. Indeed the 2005 Tufty Stackpole fixture linked above had a Saffer ringer element and the 2006 rematch even more so – rare examples of the big Saffers being on my side for a change.

Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley CC, “Match Report”, 30 July 2006

I’m digressing again.

In truth, Carl Snitcher and Catherine Hudson can only be described as Big Saffers by dint of their indisputably big personailities and their unfeasibly big tennis rackets. We’re not talking “85 mph bowling” or “move your car out of the boundary-side car park, possibly into the next village” type big Saffers.

Anyway, point is, Jonathan Ellis-Miller was probably suspecting that he would struggle to repeat his 2018 heroics when up against the combined forces of Carl Snitcher and Catherine Hudson, despite the nominally numerical advantages of his double, double-barrelled pairing with David Mitchell-Innes.

In 2018 it was Jonathan, combined with Jeremy Norman, who snatched victory from the very jaws of defeat in the fourth rubber – I think they were a set and 5-1 or 5-2 down, to level the fixture. That allowed me and Nick Evans to seal the unlikely deal with a 5th rubber win to take the match 3-2.

This year, Nick Evans was involved in the first rather than the last rubber of the fixture, partnering Richard Boys-Stones. These two were on court doing battle with Messrs Rivlin and Humphris when I arrived and had that gloomy conversation with Jonathan Ellis-Miller.

This time I have scraped the highlights (i.e. the endings) of the matches from the MCC CCTV feed. Here’s the last ten minutes of that first rubber:

Thus the MCC led 1-0 after the first rubber.

Jonathan Ellis-Miller’s sense of foreboding for the second rubber was not unwarranted, although the handicap system did its job in making for a very close contest, despite the large handicap.

While that contest was playing out, Peter Luck-Hille, who had kindly turned up to observe, remarked that he came along to watch to get away from all the politics. Then I thought Peter also suggested forming a Dedanists’ Party, which I think would be an excellent idea. I suggested the strap line:

The Dedanists’ Party – Where Politics Gets Real…

…which can be reduced to a micro-slogan: “Get Real”…

…but then learnt that Peter had actually suggested forming a Hedonists’ Party, not a Dedanists’ Party. Frankly, if Socialism doesn’t work because it takes up too many evenings, I cannot see how Hedonism as a political force might work; too many evenings, too many late nights, too many lazy days…get real.

Returning to the reality of the match, in my humble opinion, Carl and Catherine both played really well together that day and deserved their win in the circumstances. You’ll see Jonathan try to repeat the antics of 2018 with a late charge from the rear (as it were), only to fall agonisingly short in the end. I have started the video a few moments after some unrepeatable language – from whence it came who knows? – about 15 minutes from the conclusion of this rubber:

1-1 on the rubber count, at which point Dominic Flint and I took to the court to face Sharon Maidment and Sebastian Wood.

Sebastian, like Carl, is a member of both clubs and has previously represented the MCC in this fixture. This is very much the way in real tennis, although Janie tells me that I should describe these fellows, in no-nonsense terms, as traitors.

But then Janie’s judgment might not be ideal for this matter. I asked her where I should start the highlights cut on this rubber, to which she said:

I’m not sure I’d describe any of it as highlights…

…then, when Janie observed my crest-fallen facial expression, she said…

…what I meant was, all of that rubber is a highlight.

Now that makes sense. So here, split into two halves, is the entire 57 minute episode that was Rubber 3. Below the first reel…

…but I’d recommend the second reel for all but the completists amongst you, as it starts at 5-5 30-30 towards the end of the first set:

So, MCC led 2-1 as we went into the fourth rubber. That was a more one-sided affair as Sam Asgedom and John Harrington took full advantage of the handicap bestowed upon them by Paul Cattermull and Nick Davidson. Without detracting in any way from the performances of others, young Sam demonstrated how quickly young players can develop their skills beyond the progression of their handicaps – an impressive display. Here is the last few minutes of that rubber:

The calculating amongst the readership (if anyone remains this far down the page) will have gathered that the match was poised at 2-2 with one to play, as indeed it had been poised last year. But whereas last year’s deciding rubber proved to be a rather one-sided affair, with me and Nick Evans both conjuring our very best tennis, together, at the same time, for just enough time to get two sets done in a hurry…

…this year the 5th and deciding rubber proved to be an absolute cracker.

By this stage of the evening, the delicious soup, curry, cheese and the rather scrummy Malbec wine had all been taken away or had gone, but the stalwarts who remained to cheer on their heroes somehow managed to fortify themselves with a plentiful supply of Pinot Grigio which remained. Or, in my case, ahead of an early start the next day, water.

Steven Bishop and Rodger Davis, two vastly experienced gentlemen of the MCC, took on Stuart Kerr and David Offen, MURTC regulars who became regulars far more recently than the MCC regulars. The MCC won a tight first set 6-4. We join the match towrds the end of the second set, which, at this stage, MURTC seemed to be leading reasonably comfortably:

At the end of the second set, Mark Ryan, who marked the match with his usual expertise and impartiality, let anyone who was listening (i.e. those without sound-proofed boxes over their heads) that he thought the MCC should have finished the match off when they had the match point to do so. I think Mark wanted to go home and frankly, as he was the one who was working past 22:00 in the evening, who could blame him for expressing his disapointment.

But sport is sport and we were in for a humbinger of a deciding set, which starts at 3-3. For the non-artithmetical amongst the readership, that makes it a “best of five games” set rather than the regular “best of 11 games” set. For the ultra-observant of the video clip below, Mark, in his fury, had recorded the second set score on his gadget as 6-5 MCC rather than 6-5 MURTC. But everyone knew what the score really was.

As this was a handicap match, a set can go to 5-5 40-40 and be determioned by a single point, which is exactly what happened here. Further, that “one point” that determined the match became a chase, just to add to the excitement. It really was very exciting to watch.

Here’s the whole set:

It was a really splendid evening. Good company, good sport and an exciting ending to boot. MURTC might be disappointed to come away from such a match without a win, but, if you’ll forgive the cliche, tennis is the real winner when matches are as close, convivial and enjoyable as this one.

I seem to have become a regular component of fixtures between the MCC and Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC), several of which I have written up (click here for my MURTC tag). Strangely, I did not write up the November 2018 version of this fixture at the time, but I hope I have covered the 2018 match as best I can within this write up.

Anyway, I hope I am selected again – I always really enjoy these matches. There’s also something of the local derby about MCC v MURTC too which adds a certain frisson to the excellent company and good sporting combat…especially/even when the match goes tantalisingly down to the very last point.

A Day Of Sport In Exile, Mostly Middlesex v Gloucestershire At Merchant Taylors’ School, 9 July 2019

Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.

And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…

…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.

Having enjoyed a super day at Radlett with Fran and Simon earlier in the exile period…

A Visit To Radlett To See Middlesex v Glamorgan with Fran & Simon, 17 June 2019

…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.

Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.

So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:

I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.

By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.

This picture, taken by Janie, from Radlett a few weeks earlier

In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.

We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.

One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.

We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).

A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…

…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.

But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.

Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.

Simon, who is in truth a Yorkshire fan, might especially enjoy this tale of Michael Vaughan and Greek tragedy from Southgate in 2006, reported on King Cricket under my nom de plume, Ged:

Books to read at the cricket? Iphigenia Among The Taurians by Euripides

Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.

Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.

Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.

Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.

As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.

Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.

In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.

Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…

…was the message from the welcoming regulars.

A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.

When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.

Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…

…I asked…

…not yet…

…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.

Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.

Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.

Here is a link to the scorecard and other Cricinfo resources on the MTS match.

I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:

  • Roy Hudd
  • Rod Hull
  • Barry Wood
  • Benny Howell
  • Benny Hill
  • Merchant Taylors’ School
  • cashew nuts
  • New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
  • rain in Manchester
  • the possible death of the adverb.

It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.

Who Ate All The Pies? A Convivial Match Between Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) & The MCC, 4 May 2019

Help!

I paraphrase the WhatsApp message I received from Carl Snitcher (Snitch) only 10 days before the match. I suspect I was one of quite a few people who got such a message from him that day.

The upshot was that Snitch was in the backveld of South Africa, doing valuable charitable works no doubt, while the far more crucial matter of arranging the MURTC v MCC real tennis match had slipped his mind.

I spotted an opportunity to get a bit of practice with my tournament doubles partner, Dominic Flint, if by chance Dominic was also available, which he was. Somehow, probably through methods and devices similarly arcane to my recruitment of Our Man Flint, Snitch managed to cobble together a team.

In any case, I have very much enjoyed playing this fixture several times previously:

Three Courts In One Day, 29 April 2017
A Week Dominated By Intense Middlesex v MCC Contests, 24, 27 & 28 April 2018

I have also represented the MCC in the home leg of this match a couple of times – a matter which went unreported on Ogblog a few months ago despite the nail-biting nature of the fixture, which (for once) the MCC won by the skin of its teeth.

No doubt the MURTC folk were hell-bent for revenge…

…except it isn’t actually that kind of fixture, as far as I can tell. The MURTC crowd are as convivial and friendly as any competitive sporting fixture can be. The eating, drinking and socialising seems to be a pretty important element.

To that end, step forward Catherine Hudson, who, together with John Harrington, put on a phenomenal spread for our fixture lunch, centred around several massive trays of The Pie Man’s phenomenal pies. A caterer well known to me – I think it was Angela Broad (coincidentally a former real tennis player from many years gone by) who put us in touch with the Pie Man himself, Murray Tollemache, when we first started catering Z/Yen events, 20 to 25 years ago.

The most difficult decision I had to make, soon after we arrived at about 12:15, was whether to eat before or after playing at 14:00. The smell and look of the food had my heart say “eat” , but my head said, “wait”. Head won.

Janie joined us, as she did last year, which helped with the congeniality of the day, not that these two teams need help. But Janie did take lots of video clips, through which I can show the progress of our rubber which was, if I might say so, a fine metaphor for the whole match, MCC-wise.

The little video below, titled “One For The Career Highlights Reel” is, um, one for the career highlights reel. Dominic with the magnificent winner.

The next video might need some explanation for the uninitiated. The call of “up” tells your partner that you believe the ball will go above the dedans gallery and onto the back penthouse. The call of “yours” means that you want your partner to take the ball. Only very rarely have I had the opportunity to sat “up yours” to my partner descriptively. Of course I would never use those words expletively… not on the tennis court anyway.

It was actually a very good game of tennis for most of the rubber, with the pendulum swinging one way and then the other.

But soon enough our rubber turned against us. Well played, Peter and Paul.

Were Dominic and I able to cope with our disappointment and rejoin the increasingly party-like atmosphere? Would we be able to digest our food after all of that excitement and the roller-coaster ride of sporting emotions?

Yes.

It really was a most enjoyable day. The teams get on really well, despite the fierceness of the competition on court, while the professionals (Chris Bray this time, Will Burns on my previous visits) make us visitors feel extremely welcome.

So I suspect that only two questions remain for the casual reader. Firstly, who won the fixture this time? Well, I think I planted enough clues in the text, but in any case, as they say in Las Vegas, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”

The other question, normally delivered in song at sporting fixtures, is “who ate all the pies?” The answer, of course, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”

A Week Dominated By Intense Middlesex v MCC Contests, 24, 27 & 28 April 2018

Once again I found myself selected to represent the MCC against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club; a match scheduled for 28 April. But that was not to be my only Middlesex v MCC experience that week.

Tuesday 24 April – Middlesex v MCC

On the Tuesday, 24 April, there was an historic cricket match between Middlesex CCC Women and MCC Women at Lord’s. As it happens, largely by coincidence, I had arranged to play tennis at Lord’s that afternoon. So I rose early to get my work out of the way, taking the afternoon out to watch a couple of hours of cricket and do some leisure reading before playing tennis.

I commuted to Lord’s by public transport and found myself in a swirl of schoolkids and teachers on the Wellington Road – some arriving at the ground for the match and some leaving (there had been another exhibition match in the morning).

Do not be deceived by the empty stands in the photograph below, which I took from pride of place in the Warner Stand. The Grandstand was ram-packed with youngsters watching the game. As I understand it, 5,000 to 6,000 people attended the day, making it the largest ever crowd for a domestic women’s cricket match.

In truth the quality of the cricket was less than special. It reminded me a bit of Janie’s and my first experience of Women’s test cricket, at Shenley in 2003, in cricket quality terms. So there is room for improvement but also proof positive that improvement can come quickly – by 2009 when Janie and I attended the Women’s T20 World Cup final at Lord’s…

England Women v New Zealand Women and Pakistan v Sri Lanka, ICC World Twenty20 Finals Day, Lord’s, 21 June 2009

…the quality had shot up markedly and has continued to go up markedly ever since:

When Everything Went The Right Way, Women’s World Cup Final, Lord’s, 23 July 2017

From my vantage point at the front of the Warner Stand, I did need to keep an eye on each ball in case it came sailing my way, but equally was able to do some reading too. I was re-reading chunks of “What To Listen For In Music” by Aaron Copeland, with a view to helping my nascent instrument-playing, not least in the matter of transcription, adaptation and shifting modes/keys.

But I was interrupted quite early in my reading by a young woman with a strong Scouse accent who had never been to a cricket match before and wondered whether I could explain “the rules” to her. She in particular wanted to understand wickets.

Unfortunately Middlesex Women at that time seemed signally incapable of taking any wickets – not even the relatively frequent potential catches that were being offered, to help me demonstrate the ideas.

Nevertheless, my pupil seemed to get the idea of catches and clean bowled wickets quite easily. Stumped and run out seemed a little further from her experience, so we both struggled a bit when I tried to explain those. I then paused momentarily to try to work out how (or even whether) to explain LBW, when the young lady told me she needed to meet a friend, thanked me profusely and took her leave of me. I was a little relieved to be honest…as was she, I suspect, as I spotted her at the end of the innings sitting on her own at the front, a few blocks away from where she had collared me. Perhaps she was now explaining “the rules” to an “imaginary friend”. Nevertheless, she waved at me as if greeting a long-time pal.

It was well cold that day. I watched and read from the comfort of the pavilion for a while, before changing and playing two hours of tennis; an hour of singles which went very well and then an hour of doubles, to help me get my head into the doubles side of things for my impending match. After I played, I tried without success to find out the result of the women’s cricket match – both the MCC and Middlesex websites put up photos straight away but not the result.

It transpires that the Middlesex Women, on their first ever outing at Lord’s, managed to win the match – click here for more information and that rather charming photo gallery which went up straight away.

Friday 27 April – Warm-Up Practice Doubles Ahead Of Middlesex v MCC

When I realised that, by chance, my Friday singles match was to be against one of my MCC team-mates, David Mitchell-Innes, I mentioned this fact in bant form in response to one of the organising e-mails from Carl Snitcher, the team captain and my doubles partner for Saturday’s match:

I hope you are training hard for our role in this fixture. Mr Mitchell-Innes and I are due to do battle towards the cause on Friday…

…so you’ll either have two perfectly honed team members or a last minute need for two substitutes.

This kicked off a flurry of e-mails, initiated by Nick Hewitt (David’s doubles partner), that resulted, instead, in the four of us having a practice session together.

This sounded like a brilliant idea; an opportunity to have four perfectly honed team members. Except of course, when the competitive instinct kicked in, we soon realised that there was the risk we’d end up with a last minute need for four substitutes.

Carl bowed out a little early (it had been kind of him to stay on to join us at all) so when the practice match reached its inevitable denouement at one-set-all, five-games-all, forty-all…

…and I somehow, single-handedly managed to prevail…

…naturally emotions were running high. I don’t have a film clip of real tennis concluding in such a competitive spirit, but I have found a similar-looking example from women’s ice hockey:

Being Friday morning, fortunately, both Mark Ryan and Chris Swallow were on hand to help all of us to leave the court with our dignity intact and mop up ahead of the senior gentlemen, who were next on court.

In retrospect, I think this style of preparation worked better for Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt than it did for Messrs Harris and Snitcher.

Saturday 28 April – Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) v MCC

So to the big day. Janie had kindly agreed to join us for the afternoon and help us to eat what I predicted to be, based on my previous experience of this fixture,…

Three Courts In One Day, 29 April 2017

…a sumptuous lunch provided by David Sloan. I was right about the lunch.

Janie and I attempted to play modern tennis first thing, but the weather was unexpectedly shocking at 8:40 when we arrived on court and we gave up, drenched, at 9:00.

We got to Hendon while the first rubber was in full sway; a close-run affair which MURTC took by a hair’s breadth. Heartbreaking, it was. Almost enough to put one off one’s food. “ALMOST” I said.

So while the next rubber was in full sway, most of us took advantage of the delectable spread. The highlight was a superb joint of roast beef, but there was also smoked salmon, a fine selection of cheeses, plus bread, potatoes and salad.

We socialised. We ate. We got to meet John and Catherine’s delightful cocker spaniels. We watched Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt take full advantage of their practice session from the previous day to level the match 1-1.

At that stage of the afternoon, Carl seemed less concerned about the impending battle with MURTC and more concerned about doing battle with his internet service provider, who had simultaneously threatened to cut off his services unless he paid his account, while seemingly making it impossible for Carl to pay. At roughly the same time, David and Will did battle with a computer, a large television set and a TV subscription website, to enable us to see the final chapter of the 2018 World Singles Championship.

Next up for MCC was Sebastian Wood and Chris Stanton, the latter I have, coincidentally, known for over quarter of a century from my time writing for NewsRevue – he was the first professional actor ever to perform one of my lyrics:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992

No comedy involved in the fierce contest of this tennis match, though. But by the time that third rubber was concluded, MURTC were leading the fixture 2-1 and most of the crowd was watching the telly rather than watching the live tennis.

Naturally Janie (Daisy) took pride of place in the dedans gallery, along with a few others, to watch me and Carl Snitcher do battle with a pair of mighty gladiators from MURTC. Even more naturally (to anyone who has seen Daisy play modern tennis) she was cheering and applauding points won from false shots, dodgy bounces and net chords as vociferously as good shots.

In short, it is probably just as well that most of our MCC team-mates were watching the telly during that final rubber. It was all over rather quickly, MURTC winning the match 3-1, at which point those of us still on court mixed it up and played for fun for a good few minutes longer.

After that, we all decompressed and enjoyed some social minutes while watching the very end of the 2018 World Singles Championships on the TV.

Sadly, I don’t have any film clips of this year’s MURTC v MCC match, nor of the 2018 world championships that people were watching on the TV. I do have a couple of similar clips, but they have got all mixed up and I really cannot tell which is which – I’ll have to leave it to the viewer to judge:

Anyway, the match was a great success, both as a sporting and as a social occasion. With thanks not least to David Sloan for organising the fixture and food, Will/MURTC for hosting and making the match run…and of course to Carl for trying to organise the MCC team – a task that might be described as, “like trying to herd cats”.

MCC v Middlesex University Real Tennis Club, Lord’s, 16 November 2017

I was delighted to be selected to represent the MCC again against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club. This was to be my third go in that fixture – click here to read about the previous go.

Even more delighted, because I saw that our captain, Josh Farrall, had picked me to partner Chris Stanton. I have known Chris for over 25 years – he was the first professional actor to perform one of my silly songs. In NewsRevue, spring 1992.

So I thought it was to be comedy doubles. Ideally with me writing the script and Chris doing all the work.

John Random, who directed that 1992 show, on learning that Chris and I had been reunited through this strange game, had expressed a desire to see real tennis. So I had the idea to invite John to watch Chris and me play in this match.

Initially John said yes to that idea, but the weekend before the match, he was selected for a Compare The Meerkat advert and had to pull out of the Lord’s tennis spectating role. It transpires that John has previous in the matter of phoney slavic accents and extremely dodgy fur:

Win a one-way ticket to the Gulag if you even think about markets-dot-com

In the end John’s inability to show up at Lord’s was probably just as well. For a start, that Trotsky beard would not have gone down well at The Grace Gate. Further, in any case, Chris Stanton was also a no show on the day – surely not another one summoned to perform with an anthropomorphic gang from the mongoose family?

So, captain my captain Josh Farrall partnered me in the first match. Sadly there are no photos from this match, but there is a stock photo of me playing in a previous match – that isn’t Josh watching me hit the ball all wrong.

A perfect shot of an ever so slightly imperfect shot – photo by Sidney Yankson

Exhausted by our endeavours, I nevertheless volunteered to relieve our captain from multiple duties by taking his slot in the later match he was scheduled to play.

This gave me the chance to partner Nick Evans, who is even more of a novice than me and against whom I was scheduled to play singles the next day, against a delightful Middlesex couple (including the MURTC team captain) who are also more novice than me, although not by much.

The whole fixture was great fun; a lot of people who hadn’t (or had only very occasionally) played matches before, plus a few regulars of old and the odd turncoat, as was the experience in the match against the HAC a few months ago.

It was a superb success as a social evening, with the traditional Lord’s curry going down a treat, washed down with some very jolly wines.

“What was the score?”, I hear the more competitive readers cry. Come on now, I’ve told you before, what happens on the MCC tennis court stays on the MCC tennis court.

I’ll just provide one picture-based clue:

Pears-Pairs-Bagels

Real tennis was the winner, along with conviviality.

Three Courts In One Day, 29 April 2017

I was a slightly reluctant conscript to represent the MCC against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) today.

Much as I love playing real tennis, my weekend routine is to play modern tennis with Daisy in the morning and we had theatre tickets booked for the evening.

But this match was the reverse fixture of a match I played back in the autumn, mentioned en passant in this piece – click here…

…and it was after all just down the road in Hendon on a long weekend…so I told the skipper that I would play only if needed.

I got the “yes, you are needed” message a couple of weeks before the match.

Still, I was selected to play the last (doubles) rubber, mid afternoon, so I thought there was no need to dispense with the traditional Boston Manor modern tennis fixture with Janie first thing.

Lawners at Boston Manor – court one of three

I played a cracking good game of lawners, though I say so myself. Janie later claimed that she let me win by a large margin to help build my confidence for the big match. I don’t think so.

Went home, showered, switched from pyjamas to whites and off to Middlesex University for lunch and the match. By the time I got there the MCC were one rubber down and while I was eating lunch we went 2-0 down with two rubbers to go.

Then we watched a very exciting game of doubles, which looked as though it would go MURTC’s way but ended up going MCC’s way.

“No pressure, but it’s all down to you two”, said one of my team mates, helpfully, as my partner and I went on court for the deciding rubber. Court two of three.

We’d never played with each other before and I have only played a handful of doubles at real tennis, so asked my partner to do the calling. He seemed reluctant to do that at first, but when I called a couple of times, reminding him that I really wasn’t sure whether to go for the ball on not, he said he’d call himself, which he started doing and I started to work out quite quickly what he wanted to play or leave.

The handicapping system did us some favours, as my limited doubles experience means that my doubles handicap lags behind that of my singles. On the other hand, the MURTC court is very different from that at Lord’s – much bouncier, it reminded me a bit of the one I tried in Manchester last autumn – click here, adding to the novelty of the situation. Yet, that extra bounce sometimes gives the player just a smidgen of extra time to adjust and hit a better shot – at my stage of real tennis, I rather like the extra bounce.

Anyway, the upshot of all that, I’m delighted to report, is that we won our rubber and thus the match was drawn. My partner and I were metaphorically carried aloft with garlands in our hair, before everyone said fond goodbyes and went their separate ways.

These real tennis matches are very enjoyable, friendly affairs. A good way of getting to know some of the MCC players better. Also a good way to meet some really interesting and pleasant people from other clubs, in this case MURTC.

No photos from our match but here is a little promo video from MURTC that they made only a few weeks ago, which gives a pretty good idea about the place, not least its friendly and welcoming atmosphere. You can even see a couple of the people I met in the still below – the professional and the male student (left of picture).

“Three courts in one day…so what about the third court?” I hear you cry. Well, that was The Ferryman at The Royal Court, which I have written up separately – click here.