Z/Yen Tennis Evening At Boston Manor, 1 July 2010

Leo Fishman’s textbook shot (economics textbook, sadly, not tennis textbook)

Z/Yen works outings and events tend to work out successfully – not much can go wrong if you organise a jolly with activities, libations and grub.

But just occasionally, such a jolly turns out to be very special indeed; exceptionally enjoyable at the time and exceptionally memorable long after the event.

Such was, in my opinion, the Z/Yen tennis event at Boston Manor Tennis Club (BMTC); especially the first time we did it, in July 2010.

Janie and I play tennis at BMTC every weekend, unless absence or extremely foul weather prevents. We knew it would be a friendly, informal venue for a bit of sport and a barbecue…

…and an opportunity for BMTC to make a little bit of money towards its floodlight project – which met its objectives within three years of Z/Yen’s visit.

Anyway, this idea seemed to catch the collective Z/Yen imagination, as we ended up a group of 30 or so for the event; 16 playing, 14 trying to put the players off and all 30 of us eating and drinking.

I wrote the event up at the time on Now And Z/Yen – click here for link.

Actually the unsung hero (or should I say heroine) of the evening was undoubtedly Monique Gore, who organised pretty much everything (apart from the tennis itself, which was organised by Jez “Games Teacher” Horne) and also took over 100 photographs. You can click here or click through the photograph below to see all of the pictures:

Monique is an excellent photographer. Observe, in the picture above, she has managed to produce the visual illusion that I know what I am doing playing doubles up at the net. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I do look the part in that picture – as does Chiara hitting the ball in the background – thanks Monique.

The above picture does remind me of one early memory of the evening, which found its way into the Now and Z/Yen report:

It was Chiara von Gunten’s first working day, so we hope she doesn’t get into the habit of knocking off work every day at 15:30 and spending the rest of the afternoon enjoying sport and revelry. Within about 15 seconds of starting practice with her randomly-picked doubles partner, Ian Harris, she had “caught him amidships” from behind. Not a good career move on your first day, Chiara.

Strangely, the above incident didn’t adversely affect Chiara’s career in the end…probably because she was so good at her job.

You could be forgiven for assuming, if you only saw the above picture of Leo Fishman swatting a fly…I mean trying to hit a tennis ball…that Leo wasn’t too sure what she was doing…

…but I knew that Leo comes from good tennis stock – I spent many hours on the tennis courts at Keele in my student days while her grandfather, Professor Les Fishman, was playing with his entourage on one of the other courts.

So it wasn’t a complete surprise when Leo and Joey took the coveted trophy that year; presented by Jez.

To quote from the Now and Z/Yen write up:

With the barbeque sizzling and the refreshments flowing, the tennis competition soon became secondary, although plenty of people enjoyed some makeshift tennis after the tournament ended. The revelry went on long after dark, which takes some late-night stamina at this time of year.

The above memory is my most abiding one – a surprisingly large group of people lingering on, enjoying the glorious long summer evening and each other’s company until very late.

One memory absent from the Now and Z/Yen report was the appearance of Angela Broad with her friend Doreen, who was briefly in the country at that time. Doreen’s chauffeur parked the ginormous Mercedes “inconspicuously” on the far side of the car park. This worked in a way, because if you weren’t looking out for it, you probably wouldn’t have noticed it from the courts or associated that vehicle with our event. It must have caused a bit of a stir amongst the regular park users, though. Janie and I thought it was very funny at the time.

I’d love to know if other people remember this particular event as fondly as I do…

…and do people have some other/alternative memories of that evening they would care to share