Tennis (real and modern) – Page 14

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

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

Z/Yen’s mighty gladiators prepare for battle

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.

Maury Shenk “cannot be serious”, foreground, with Ben Morris at the base line

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.

Leo demonstrates a textbook shot…unfortunately it is from the economics text book, not the tennis text book

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

Tennis at hotel Moulin d’Hauterive – an aside, 1 to 5 September 2009

An aside about tennis during our short Burgundy break with Tony and Phillie – the main piece can be found here.

One of the reasons we booked the Moulin d’Hauterive was because it boasted a tennis court amongst its amenities.

Janie and I have travelled far and we have travelled wide. Our tennis rackets and balls have travelled long distances with us. Occasionally the tennis courts we find at the hotels are not quite up to the standards we are used to at home, not that we have always played on very high standards of surfaces at home either. We are leisure players.

For example, we enjoyed the tennis court at the Zenobia Cham Palace Hotel in Palmyra in 1997 despite its idiosyncrasies – I don’t suppose it is up to much any more of course – point is, we make allowances.

But the tennis court at Moulin d’Hauterive almost defies description. Had the Burgundy region recently suffered a major war or a series of natural disasters of the earthquake and hurricane variety, the cracked, moonscape-like surface and the intermittence of the perimeter netting might have been explicable.

But this didn’t look like the result of a recent disaster. It looked like decades of neglectful, distressed gentility.

On challenge, the rather haughty proprietor’s son (who had sniffly advised us, when I asked about choosing wine to go with the specific food we had ordered, simply that the more expensive bottles were always the better ones) mumbled indifferently that the court was indeed due for some repairs soon.

We played each day. It is difficult to describe the game we played as tennis in the modern sense, but it was some form of a game with rackets and balls, plus we used the tennis scoring system. But in truth it was more of a range hitting game, where we aimed for the smooth if we wanted to perpetuate a rally or aimed for the rough if we wanted a laugh.

Memorable is probably the best adjective for it.

I note that hotel Moulin d’Hauterive no longer boasts the tennis court amongst its amenities. What a pity.

Provence & St Tropez, 22 To 29 April 2008, placeholder and links

This was a bit of an unusual week away for us. Kim had been persistently asking us to join her and friends in St Tropez for her birthday for a few years. We’d insisted that we didn’t think that St Tropez would be “our thing”. She wondered how we could judge such a thing without giving it a try.

So, our cunning plan to please everyone including ourselves was to arrange a fly-drive week in the South of France, initially doing our own thing for a few days…

and then joining up with Kim, Micky and others in “San-trop”.

Auntie Janet at Ultimate Travel helped us to construct our itinerary but I cannot find any papers from her, only this quote from her e-mail/invoice:

French Expressions holidays including flights;

Automatic car hire throughout and three nights accommodation

in a Junior Suite at L’Auberge du Chateau de Berne on a bed

and breakfast basis

So, in brief, we flew to Nice and picked up a car for our week in France. We stayed three nights at the delightful Chateau de Berne Hotel and Spa.

We did a bit of touring…

…together with a lot of resting, wining and dining; three nights there. Lovely sun deck for reading; great to try their wines and we even played some ping pong (Daisy’s favourite, because she normally wins).

Then on to St Tropez for four nights at the Tahiti Beach Hotel…

…where Kim and Micky regularly stay. We arrived the day before the others, so played tennis and then ate at a Vietnamese restaurant named Bahn Hoi, recommended by Anthea. Very nice but also very pricey. That’s St Tropez for you.

Next day we have an early morning snoop around the market…

…then finally meet up with Kim and Micky for lunch at Tahiti that day.

We worked off the lunch on the tennis court. Dinner that evening is at Villa Romana, with Robert, Fiza and their son/girlfriend too. A very fashionable place but it is heaving and displeases me; food ordinary apart from the price:

Next day, we played tennis in the morning. Indeed, we played tennis at Tahiti on the tennis court there a few times. Not the best surface we have ever played on, but far from the worst. As our short stay went on, we found it harder and harder to play tennis for an hour; a cautionary tale for all of us.

Same gang as last night for lunch at Tahiti; then after siesta an evening at a St Tropez nightclub, Stefano Forever.

I was dreading this one but actually it was more fun. As it was pre-season, the show was a tryout and we were the only guests, so we got to have a lot of fun as audience participation could only be us…

…and we were the only possible invitees to the after show party…

…Janie even tried her hand at pole dancing…of sorts…

…she got a wee bit better at it remarkably quickly when she actually took up pole dancing some 10 years later:

…but I digress.

The final day was Kim’s actual birthday. Despite the excesses of the night before, lunch between the four of us (the Robert Anthony family, perhaps knowing the score, made themselves scarce that lunchtime) was a boozy and celebratory affair:

Indeed, after siesta Janie swore that she couldn’t make it to the arranged dinner for six of us (son and girlfriend were gone by now) at L’Auberge de Maures, but then changed her mind. In this photo, I look almost as rough as I felt.

In truth, our view that this sort of eating and drinking extravaganza is not really our thing was reinforced by this trip, but we made Kim happy for her birthday that year and at least we can now say we’ve tried it.

Lots more photos, including those above, in this Flickr album, but surely more for the cognoscenti (i.e. those who were there) than for general consumption. I probably can construct a few good tales from the trusty journal once I get around to it; for now here is the indecipherable scribblings: Provence and St Tropez April 2008 Journal Notes.

A Tied Final To An International One-Day Cricket Tournament, At Lord’s, Janie And I Were There, 2 July 2005

Writing on 21 July 2019, I have been thinking about close and tied matches a lot lately. The cricket world cup was decided on the finest of margins last week, as was the Wimbledon Gentleman’s Final – the first ever to go to tie break:

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

Today, Janie and I were battling out the tightest of sets of tennis, as oft we do. We ended the match at 5-5 as a tie. We tend to do that if the scores are level at 5-5 or 6-6. Janie and I believe in ties.

Of course there is a huge difference between amateur sport and professional sport. But Janie also felt strongly that the 2019 world cup should similarly have been determined as a tie and shared between England and New Zealand. I’m not 100% sure; it certainly isn’t the modern way for tournaments.

But on the way home from our epic tennis tied match today, my mind wandered to a match that Janie and I witnessed in that glorious and exciting summer of cricket that was 2005. We went to Lord’s to see the final of the one day international (ODI) tri-series between Australia, Bangladesh and England; a final between England and Australia that ended as a tie.

How was that tie resolved, I wondered. I couldn’t remember. So I looked it up.

Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources on that 2005 tied match.

In fact, back in 2005, the playing conditions for that tri-series – presumably agreed between the three nations but ultimately under the auspices of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rather than the International Cricket Council (ICC) – determined that final as a tie if the scores were level after 50 overs.

England and Australia shared the trophy.

No super over (I don’t recall ever seeing those back then), no boundaries count back (I don’t recall seeing that until this most recent ICC World Cup), no priority to the team with the most wickets remaining at the end of their innings (that method had been discredited quite early in the Duckworth- Lewis era as anathema to the mathematical logic of wickets and overs as being algorithmic-equivalent resources that can become exhausted).

It had been a great match, that 2005 ODI final. At first we thought England were way ahead…

…even when Australia crawled back to post 196 runs…

…until England ended up 33/5 and we thought England had blown it…

…until England somehow managed to crawl back to 196/9, securing a couple of leg byes off the last ball to tie the match.

Perhaps others in the crowd thought differently, but Janie and I left the ground feeling thoroughly satisfied with our day’s entertainment, the thrills and spills of the ebb and flow…

…and a feeling that justice had been done to a hard-fought match when the trophy was shared for a tie.

Who would have won on a super over? We’ll never know.

Who would have won on boundary count-backs? Australia.

Who would have won on the basis of fewer wickets lost? England.

Who gives a fig how the match would have been determined if the playing conditions had been different? Only a pedant, really, as either or both teams might have played the final few balls differently if other playing conditions were being applied.

It was a summer of fine margins, really. England prevailed in the tournament that really mattered, the Ashes…

Later that summer… (thanks to Charles Bartlett for the picture)

…we were there that day too – the final day of the 2005 Ashes series – to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time. But that Ashes win came as a result of a drawn match at the end and a couple of really tight finishes, especially the Edgbaston test (also to be Ogblogged in the fullness).

But in early July, the excitement was that tied ODI. In fact, that tied ODI match at Lord’s was not the only tie I witnessed that season…indeed not even the only tie I witnessed that month, July 2005 – I even participated in one:

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

What a season that 2005 season was. Not least because of the tied matches.

Some Dubs At Queen’s With Abe Koukou & His Pals, 24 November 1999

Same place, 20 years later

I have previously written about my inadvertent act of gamesmanship – specifically guestmanship – with Abe Koukou at The Queen’s Club earlier in 1999.

Lawn Tennis At Queen’s, In Which I Inadvertently Deployed Gamesmanship Masterfully, Yet Still Lost, 24 June 1999

This note in my diary reminds me of one of the occasions when Abe nevertheless invited me back to play doubles with him and his pals. Not on that wintery-looking grass court, of course, but indoors on the carpet.

I don’t recall what happened tennis-wise – I suspect that I partnered the best of the four and that we had a decent game on the back of that.

I remember what happened afterwards more clearly. Abe was keen to see the progress (or lack thereof) in my Clanricarde Gardens flat, which had been a conversation piece over drinks. I think we also agreed all to dine at The Park Inn, my favourite Chinese restaurant, on Wellington Terrace just a few strides from the flat. So all four of us bundled over to my part of Kensington as it were, to see the flat.

It was very much still work in progress. I remember one of the guys questioning whether it would all be done before Christmas if, as I had described, Gavin was unable to retain a member of staff even for half a day so was effectively working alone on the job.

I also remember one of the guys (perhaps the same one) suggesting that the smell of solvents inside the flat was so great that it was making his eyes stream after five minutes and was surely so strong that anyone working in there for several hours would be “high as a kite” for much of the day.

Valid points, I sense.

Eventually it was all done and lovely…much to the relief of all of the then residents.

I don’t much recall the meal either. But at The Park Inn it will have been good.

Lawn Tennis At Queen’s, In Which I Inadvertently Deployed Gamesmanship Masterfully, Yet Still Lost, 24 June 1999

I was reminded of this incident in June/July 2019 while Lord’s is too busy with the cricket world cup to allow us to play real tennis there, so several of us are playing in exile at Queen’s.

A Five Set Epic At Queen’s Followed By A Jam With DJ, 26 June 2019

The recovered memory arises because these 2019 visits, like the 1999 one, are occuring just after the ATP tournament has finished at Queen’s, making the place a bit of a maze/building site. This is not a complaint, btw – I think it is very generous of Queen’s to let us real tennis addicts play there at such a disrupted time.

My 1999 visit at the same time of year was an invitation for an after-work game of tennis by my friend/client Abe Koukou, who was a member of The Queen’s Club and who knew that Janie and I play modern (lawn) tennis regularly.

I told Abe, truthfully, that I had never played at Queen’s before and that I was delighted to be invited.

Which was true.

What I omitted to tell Abe, because it seemed irrelevant at the time, was that I did know The Queen’s Club rather well, having done some advisory work for the Club back in the early 1990s. At that time, I was still laid up with my multiply-prolapsed spine and had been unable to play. Indeed had that not been the case, I might have got addicted to real tennis back then. I do remember Howard Angus showing it to me when there was a major tournament on, being fascinated by it and feeling regretful that I was not fit enough to give real tennis a try back then.

Some 27 years after my first look at real tennis at Queen’s…

…but I digress.

Point is, although Abe was hosting my first go at playing tennis at Queen’s in June 1999, I knew the place pretty well.

On our arrival, Abe was discombobulated by the cordons and the fact that his usual route to the changing rooms was blocked off. But I knew multiple ways around the complex.

That’s OK, we can get there this way instead

..said I, going into automatic and taking the route past the squash and real tennis courts.

I thought you’d never played here before?

…said Abe, quizzically.

I explained.

After our tennis match, my first experience of playing on carpet as a surface as well as my first experience of playing at Queen’s, we retired to the bar.

There, by the bar, was Jonathan Edwardes, then the Club Secretary (a role now called the Chief Executive Officer).

Hello Ian, how lovely to see you here. So sorry I wasn’t able to accept Michael’s invitation onto that sailing barge of his. I’d have so enjoyed that…

At this juncture, Abe’s eyes widened a little, so I introduced Abe to Jonathan.

It then dawned on me that I had inadvertently, but comprehensively, deployed a version of gamesmanship, known as guestmanship.

The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship, or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating by Stephen Potter

I have long been a fan of Stephen Potter’s books and especially like the Gamesmanship one.

In the Guestmanship section, Potter explains that the host at a sports club is at an advantage…

He is playing on his home ground. He knows the ropes…there are plenty of opportunities for making his guest feel out of it…

…so the seasoned gamesman finds ways to reverse the advantage, by mugging up on the host’s club. The prepared gamesman ensures that the host:

would wonder whether he was a host in any valid sense…indeed he would begin to wonder whether he really was a member of his own club.

Potter then gives some examples of what the gamesman might do to deploy guestmanship masterfully…

…but I must say that none of Potter’s examples seem to me quite as masterful as my guestmanship at Queen’s that day in 1999. Indeed, I believe that my application of the art of guestmanship one-upped Stephen Potter’s original example. Having one-upped the one-upmanship chap, even inadvertently, is quite a thing.

So did my guestmanship result in Abe succumbing to my dark arts of tennis? Did it heck. Abe thrashed me in the first set (which reminds me, I need to go out to get some bagels). I did a little better in the second set.

And did the combination of my guestmanship and my comparatively limited skills at tennis make this the first and very last time I ever played at Queen’s with Abe? Of course it didn’t. Abe is such a genial, friendly and good-humoured fellow, he simply found the whole incident very funny. My subsequent visits as Abe’s guest were mostly with two other players making up a doubles that would be well matched. In real life, give me good sports (like Abe) over gamesmen any day.

But the book Gamesmanship, though over 70 years old now, is still a hoot; I do commend it.

Z/Yen & The Children’s Society Tennis Evening In Lammas Park, Ealing, 4 June 1999

Janie, with tennis racket but without step ladder, in Lammas Park, 2020

Following the success of a cricket evening the previous year…

The Very Second Z/Yen Charity Cricket Match – The First With The Children’s Society, 25 August 1998

…we decided to do that again in 1999 (late July), preceded by a tennis evening, which Janie and I organised, through Larry, at our then spiritual home of tennis, Lammas Park.

The Lammas Park “club” in the 1990s was a very informal place, under the auspices of Larry and his gang. Warm-hearted for sure, Larry was absolutely up for it when he heard that this was a charity event, allowing us a brace of courts for the evening and organising a barbeque for £200, according to Janie’s diary. We organised the drinks separately and naturally allowed Larry and his gang to join us in the libations.

Janie’s diary also suggests that we went to see Dick at the sports shop in Ealing, where we bought balls for the tournament and I am pretty sure I purchased the now-famous cricket scorebook on the same occasion, ahead of the July match.

I was pumped, ready for tournament play.

I think we had eight to ten people from Z/Yen and a similar number from The Children’s Society that evening.

I am pretty sure the Mainelli family attended and that Linda and Geoff Cook were there. Teresa almost certainly came along. I think Mike Smith ducked out of this one – he usually did for these events. Other attendees – possibly the Rutlands (Geoffrey and Rupert), possibly The Hightons (David & Elisabeth) who live nearby.

For The Children’s Society, Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett was there for sure; perhaps with Nick as well. I am pretty sure that Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil was also there; I think I had only met Harish a couple of times before this event. One or two from that IT team who were resistant to cricket were less resistant to the idea of tennis and barbeque. Michael and Jonathan I think.

I especially remember Charles Nall, who was new to The Children’s Society at that time, being there. I remember this, because I told Janie ahead of the event that she would meet the new Finance Director. When Janie asked me ahead of time what he was like, I replied, “very tall”.

On meeting Charles, Janie looked up at him and said:

Gosh, you are tall. I’m going to need a step ladder to look you in the eye and talk with you!

Charles Nall looked down at Janie with a puzzled expression on his face – possibly wondering whether or not he was supposed to be angry at this…then burst out laughing.

In truth I had no recollection of how the tournament went. I remember it more as an opportunity for people to eat, drink and make merry. Perhaps for that reason, it seems that Z/Yen, for once, prevailed in this tournament. How do I know? Because it was headline news in Now & Z/Yen June 1999, that’s how. Click here to read all about it…and more. That edition of Now & Z/Yen doesn’t read like one of mine – it has a Mainelli feel to it, either as author or editor. For those who don’t like to click, an extract below:

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills…but never, shall we surrender”

Stirring as this is, apparently Sir Winston was not talking about the fifth Z/Yen versus charities sports match. We fought Barnardo’s on the cricket pitch, twice – and they thrashed us. We fought The Children’s Society in the bowling alleys, twice – and they thrashed us. It was looking like the hills when Z/Yen won The Children’s Society challenge on the tennis courts! At our victory roast, the innocent victims were … forced to … watch us gloat. A good time was had by all the winners, and some of the victims who enjoyed some of our particularly sadistic IT trivia games. Sadly, the cricket season is soon upon us.

*I must have been going through a purple patch*

The Start Of A Tennis Tradition That’s Gone On For Decades, 5 September 1993

Janie and I talk about he fact that we have played tennis throughout our time together, which is true. We even played tennis of sorts the very day we met:

Kim and Micky’s Party, 8 August 1992

But in reality, we didn’t play all that much during our first year together. We did occasionally play at Kim & Micky’s place – indeed Janie did that more regularly than I did. But it was very occasional.

I have found a reference in Janie’s diary which is, I think, the first time we went down to Lamas Park and played on the courts there together.

11.30 Tennis. Plus £2.50

That was the start of our regular tennis. Not every week, or even most weeks, at first. But quite quickly it became a very regular thing.

Lamas Park became “the place” for us for six or seven years. Them, around the turn of the century, we switched to Boston Manor Park. But that’s another story.

An Evening With Janie & Kim & Micky & Tennis, 4 September 1992

This is the first sequel to my trilogy of postings which explain how Janie and I got together.

The first time we met was a party at Kim & Micky’s place, which ended up on the Central Square tennis court…

Kim and Micky’s Party, 8 August 1992

Second up – the ossobuco evening at Janie’s place a week or so later, with Kim & Micky there as informal chaperones:

Ossobuco At Janie’s Place, 16 August 1992

The third part of the trilogy being the Street of Crocodiles evening:

Janie and I Go On Our First Proper Date, The Street Of Crocodiles, Cottesloe Theatre, 29 August 1992

So the invitation to Kim’s the following Friday must have come hot on the heels of a positive report from Janie on the Street of Crocodiles date…

…or at least not a negative report.

Intriguingly, there is also a note in Janie’s diary that she had a new bed delivered on Tuesday 1 September. Janie claims that the timing of the bed purchase must be pure coincidence. I am tempted to believe her and I am sure that all you sweet Ogblog readers are similarly convinced by the “must be” argument.

Anyway, for Friday 4 September, the suggestion was that we gather for some early evening tennis in the Square and then eat5 at Kim & Micky’s place afterwards.

Picture borrowed from and linked to http://www.hgstrust.org/news/archive.shtml

I think the pre-refurbishment look of the courts in 1992 can just be seen on the second court at the back of this picture.

Anyway, we were returning to the scene of the 8 August crime (as it were), with Kim, Micky and their dogs Charlie and Jumper in tow. In truth, even though I was no doubt sober on arrival, tennis peppered with dogs wanting to chase the balls all the time is not exactly great tennis.

But it was great company, of course. In any case, the wine would soon start to take effect making the tennis seem less important and the idea of sloping back to Kim & Micky’s place for more wine plus food increasingly appealing…

…so that’s what we did.

Janie recalls we did this more than once, but the evenings were drawing in and soon tennis was off the agenda for Friday evenings even though gathering after work on a Friday was something we did quite regularly (i.e. once every few weeks) in this early months/years.

Sunday 20 September shows Kim & Micky tennis in Janie’s diary, whereas it says “Bridge?” in mine. I don’t think the bridge happened. Janie had been to the Questors Theatre with her mum the night before. More on the Questors anon. Anyway, I do think we spent that Sunday afternoon with Kim & Micky, plus Charlie and Jumper making tennis havoc.

Plenty of Tennis Between My Law Finals And My Economics Finals, Keele, 24 to 26 May 1984

The late, great Alan Gorman, aka The Great Yorkshire Pudding, with thanks to Susan Gorman for the photo

Thursday 24 May 1984: Did some work today – played tennis in afternoon – worked at Bobbies in eve – came back after.

Friday 25 May 1984: Did some work today (not very much) – cold etc – worked over at Bobbies in eve.

Saturday 26 May 1984: Went shopping in afternoon (-McDonalds ) – played tennis in afternoon – went Bobbies to work in evening – stayed.

This was part of a short period between the end of my Law Finals exams and the start of my Economics Finals exams.

I do remember playing rather a lot of tennis at that time.

The tennis (when the opponent was not named in the diary) would have been Alan Gorman, aka The Great Yorkshire Pudding.

Pudding and I played a great deal that year, including several five match thrillers, which might well have taken in excess of three hours to complete.

I have a vague recollection that one of our five set thrillers did take place in that interval between my finals exams and I have a feeling it would have been the 24 May match, which preceded me having a cold the next day – a minor illness probably exacerbated by an excess of tennis.

Pudding and I were quite evenly matched at tennis, although we were very different in playing styles and physique. Pudding was tall and skinny, with “long levers” (as we say these days) and a fair bit of strength. I was much shorter, skinny, compact and comparatively feeble – but I was quick around the court and quite cunning in my style. Our matches were nearly always close.

We didn’t look much like this in 1984, but Ivan Lendl did.

The tennis courts were not much used, so we could usually play whenever we wanted for however long we wanted.

Unfortunately for me, several members of the Economics Department were amongst the very small band of other regulars on those courts, not least Professor Les Fishman, Mrs Fishman and Peter Lawrence. I don’t think they were impressed by the duration and intensity of our matches that close to my finals.

They might have had a point.

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