l to r standing: Peter, Graeme, Giles, Graham, Me, Jonathan, Piers, Chris, Nick, Paul T, Paul B-B, Kelsey, Susan, Noel, Ellen, Steve, Tony. l-r kneeling: Keith, Chris, Sarah. With thanks to Kelsey Dolan for this & other photos from the day
Long in the planning, a delegation of tennis enthusiasts from Newport, Rhode Island ventured across the pond to play real tennis (or, as they call it over there, court tennis) at the several courts in and near London. This day was their Lord’s day.
I was delighted and honoured to be selected for the MCC team, this being only my second opportunity to represent the club at international club level. My first international was actually my first ever match for the MCC, report linked here and below:
Newport Casino is a fascinating-sounding place, steeped in tennis history; home to the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the original location of the tournament now known as the US Open (lawn) as well as a court tennis facility and much else. Sounds like my sort of casino – I like those that aren’t gambling houses.
Perhaps it was the club’s deep links with history, perhaps it was my remembering seeing Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais in several places on my first visit to the USA in the 1980s…
…but I’m not entirely sure why I imagined the visiting delegation in the style of the Burghers of Calais. Anyway, in an attempt to envisage our visitors a bit better before the day, I asked the DeepAI Image Generator for help:
The picture made me laugh, although it seems that two of Rodin’s six burghers don’t play tennis and that all of them have grown “Eustache beards” since Rodin’s day. Anyway, I can safely state that our friendly and charming guests from Newport did not look like those Calais burghers. Some wags might suggest that the AI depiction suits the burghers of the Marylebone Cricket Club more than those of Newport Casino.
It was simply a pleasurable day. Most of the visitors were keen to see around Lord’s when they weren’t playing and several of us were similarly keen to show the visitors around.
The tennis matches, seven rubbers, were all extremely closely contested.
- Steven Bishop & Graeme Marks v Keith Mayer & Paul Tromby
- Jonathan Ellis-Miller & Ollie Wise v Steve Devoe & Chris Werner
- Piers Vacher & Peter Brunner v Noel Shiland & Ellen Defoe
- Ian Harris & Paul Buchanan-Barrow v Sarah Stanley & Kelsey Dolan
- Barry Nathan & Nick Davidson v Noel Shiland & Kelsey Dolan
- Iain Harvey & Piers Vacher v Chris Werner & Steve Devoe
- Giles Pemberton & Graham Findlay v Keith Mayer & Paul Tromby
I don’t think I can remember an event where quite so many sets of tennis went to to deciders at 5-5.
“So what were the precise scores in each of the sets of each of the rubbers and all that”, I hear you readers cry. Well, you know what Colson Whitehead (almost) said:
What happens in Newport Casino stays in Newport Casino…
It really was one of those days when everybody won. I sensed that the visitors very much enjoyed our hospitality and the MCC team similarly thoroughly enjoyed the company of the interesting, friendly delegation from Newport.
Beyond the many interesting conversations about tennis and our respective clubs, I took great pleasure in showing several of the visitors around the ground. Kelsey, who is a softball enthusiast as well as a tennis enthusiast, took a shine to the indoor school and would really like a go at batting. Let’s arrange that for next time!
Almost all of us retreated to The Ivy on St John’s Wood High Street for some dinner. Several of the visitors were, understandably, struggling to reconcile the pronunciation and spelling of the word Marylebone. I consoled them by explaining that we’re probably all getting it wrong when we pronounce St John’s Wood, as it was most likely pronounced “sinjin’s wood” back in the day.
To cap it all, amongst the assortment of fascinating conversations we were all having over dinner, Ellen and I discovered that we have a shared interest in early music, including madrigals. She was not aware that our young professional Alex is not the earliest generation of the Hume family to sing professionally and was intrigued to learn that several of us have played with his dad, Alistair, who was a founding member of The King’s Singers. I recommended the album Madrigal History Tour to her, and/but have found a YouTube of the TV show from whence that album sprung:
It was that sort of day and that sort of evening. Warm-hearted, interesting people finding things in common and enjoying each other’s company. We left The Ivy in a glow of high spirits…that was possibly the gemütlichkeit, but possibly it was the wine and cocktails.
