Category: Tennis (real and modern)

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.

Me, still pumped, Lammas Park, 2020

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.

Anyone…And In Spring 1983 At Keele That Was Pretty Much Anyone…For Tennis?

Still crazy after all these years.

Back then…

I have collaborated with Dall-E 2 to produce this and the following images in this piece.

..one of the great benefits, to me, from securing a front-facing Barnes flat for 1982/83 (Barnes L54) was the view across the playing fields to the tennis courts.

I liked playing tennis back then…40 years later I still do and can barely wait for my next tennis playing fix if kept away from the court for a while.

My plans to spend a fair amount of the spring and summer of 1983 on the tennis court seemed to have been thwarted by my debilitating indisposition with glandular fever in February, but still, I recall, Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman and I had agreed to bring tennis rackets back from our Easter breaks as we intended to do battle with each other on the tennis court.

Neither Connors nor McEnroe would have seemed more brattish than Pudding or Harris

I was religiously exercising to try to strengthen up a bit, following the dreaded glandular fever, using a Royal Canadian Air Force Exercises book I had procured, for a few pence, a couple of years earlier (soon after I knacked my back) at the Students’ Union Book Fair:

Now a rare book, that 1964 edition. I should still have mine somewhere; ironically out of reach

I have recently apologised to my former Barnes L Block neighbours for the music noise…

Rock and Roll Wasn’t Noise Pollution At Keele, But Which Was Noisier In Spring 1983, Barnes L52 or L54?

…but should specifically apologise to the residents of L51, especially whosoever was unfortunate enough to dwell directly underneath me, for the “thud thud thud” of those exercises. I also apologise unequivocally to my spine, for I am now reliably informed that those “space cadet style” Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans were not intended for the likes of me and my back.

Anyway, I remember asking Dr Scott, towards the end of the Easter recess, as the weather started to improve, about the possibility of me playing tennis.

“Good idea”, said Scotty. “Outdoor exercise like tennis, in moderation, should work well for you.”

“What comprises moderation, Scotty? How long might I play for?”

“Your body will tell you”, said Scotty.

So, before Pudding’s return to Keele, I started my preparations, seeking some warm up games with anyone who was around.

Tuesday 12 April 1983 – …went to Mike and Mandy’s for dinner and haircut…

Wednesday 13 April 1983 Did a little work today – played tennis in afternoon with Veera & Debbie…

You won’t see many mentions of hair cuts in my diaries. Mike had been a hairdresser before he went to North Staffs Poly and I recall Liza insisting that he cut my hair. I would normally resist, but clearly I was seeking some vital streamlining for the tennis to come.

Veera & Debbie were my neighbours from Barnes L52. I don’t think they were particularly sporty but were happy to have a go with me in the interests of my physical wellbeing. I think Debbie was a bit better and keener on tennis than Veera.

Thursday 14 April 1983 – …went out for meal at Mil????/ with Liza…

Friday 15 April 1983 – …played tennis with Hamzah [my flatmate] Yazzid & Bai [Malay guys from Barnes Q92]…

I cannot read my own handwriting on the name of that restaurant/cafe on the Thursday. Mildred’s? A “proper” game of doubles with the South-East Asian contingent on the Friday. Yazzid & Bai were quite sporty. Hamzah wasn’t.

Most of that gang no doubt imagined Vitas Gerulaitis to be a Latin term for glandular fever

Sunday 17 April 1983 …tennis with Debbie…

Yes, I recalled correctly that Debbie was keener and probably a tad better than my other friends and neighbours, all of whom were great fun to play tennis with, regardless of the quality of the tennis. Mine was probably pretty shoddy at that time anyway.

Tuesday 19 April …played tennis with Hamzah…

Thursday 21 April …got economics result…53% v pleased…played tennis for 4 hours…

Saturday 23 April …played tennis in afternoon (poor) & then went to Liza’s new place

The intriguing thing about these postings is that I mention the opponent in every posting except the last two, which were, of course, matches played with (against) Alan Gorman.

It seems I had established my intention, to play this game with Alan, so clearly in my mind, that I didn’t need to mention who I was playing against when the opponent was Alan. Obviously it was Alan.

Alan and I might have looked a bit like this

Less obviously, my definition of “moderation” and “letting my body tell me” extended to a four hour marathon match that first time we played each other. It established a tradition which we implemented with more fervour the following year – that we would battle a best of five sets to the bitter end – an indulgence that I simply cannot imagine (at least in the matter of singles) any more.

No wonder I was “poor” a couple of days later.

I mentioned my economics result in the diary. I wouldn’t be “v pleased” with 53% for economics these days – only gold medals will do – but having been so poorly and having missed so much class, I remember Peter Lawrence encouraging me to sit the mock exam without much expectation of a pass, hence he (and I) thought that result pleasing in the circumstances.

As a footnote – we would often see Economics department folk – not least Peter himself and Professor & Mrs Fishman – on the tennis courts. Not many academics (or students) used them, but they did. I’ll have more to say on that when I write up 1984. But some readers might be surprised/fascinated to learn that Professor Fishman’s grand-daughter, Leo, worked for my firm for a number of years. Despite Leo being a tennis neophyte, she successfully won our mini-tournament in 2010:

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

That first season of it, my play was interrupted in part by my spending lots of time with Liza at Rectory Road, Shelton, where she now resided with her North Staffs Poly pals.

Also by some waves of indisposition as a result of glandular fever relapses, which probably were exacerbated by four hour tennis marathons – who knew?

Tuesday 26 April 1983 …played tennis for a while…

Friday 29 April – …played tennis…

Sunday 1 May – …not v well today went back to Shelton…

Dall-E thinks we might have looked like this.

Footnote – A Clarification From Professor Lawrence

In response to me sending him a link to this piece, Peter Lawrence sent the following clarification about the professorial tennis:

You did indeed see me on the courts usually playing my then wife. I remember seeing Les Fishman on the courts but never his wife Ellie. Les usually played with the wife of someone in Maths whose name will come back to me after I have sent this email. Not sure who made up the four, probably the maths guy to keep an eye on his wife maybe but who else I remember not.

Not only were the academics keeping an eye on each other and each other’s wives, but they were, at times, keeping an eye on me. On more than one occasion, that spring and especially the following one, my finals year, either Les or Peter commented to that I seemed to be spending a lot of time on the tennis court just ahead of my exams. I no doubt demurred with a “healthy body, healthy mind” type comment, but they did have a point.

The First Week Of A Working Summer: The Joys Of Braintree & Wimbledon, 29 June to 4 July 1981

Rob Croes / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

In truth, any summer job would have seemed like an anti-climax after the last few weeks of my first summer term at Keele.

A Very Special Week, The Last Week Of My First Year At Keele, But There Was A Catch… 21 to 28 June 1981

Being sent out on audit to a furniture factory in Braintree just brought home the lifestyle contrast.

Travel broadens the mind…even a daily commute from Streatham to Braintree

Strangely, I remember rather liking the commute, as I had acquired a taste for reading on the move during my National BBYO period (1979-1980) and was reading voraciously by the summer of 1981.

Only one night out during the week that first week – the Tuesday – an evening with Jimmy (Bateman), a friend from Alleyn’s School. I have described a similar evening with Jimmy in an earlier piece, from my Easter holiday job:

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

I say in the diary that I was summoned back to the office from Braintree before the end of the working day on the Friday. My mum had complained to “the authorities” (via my Uncle Michael no doubt) that my lengthy commute was too onerous a duty for her little one. Her motivation for this unwanted intervention was the delay my long commute caused to the family meal. Dad’s drive from the shop to the house only took 10-15 minutes.

I was really irritated when I discovered that mum had intervened, but the die was cast and I was back in the office for the rest of the summer, with only London-based clients in my auditing-orbit. That did enable me to socialise with my friends a bit more, I suppose, which I most certainly did that summer.

On the Saturday I spent much of the day watching Wimbledon finals day. In those days, the whole tournament was a week earlier than it is today and the men’s finals day was on the Saturday.

That Borg/McEnroe final was an absolute classic and I remember it well. I also remember watching the subsequent doubles matches too. In those days, my mum was keen to watch and probably watched much of it with me.

Below is David Irvine’s take on it all from The Guardian on the following Monday.

Wimbledon Finals Day 4 July 1981 Reviewed In GuardianWimbledon Finals Day 4 July 1981 Reviewed In Guardian 06 Jul 1981, Mon The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I also mention taping charts and Paul (Deacon – also a friend from Alleyn’s) visiting in the evening. There’ll be some more playlists to follow in the fulness of time, but for now I shall sign off this piece, exactly forty years on.

A Marathon Day Of Court Sport; Fives and Fridge Ball, 4 December 1974

diary-december-1974-smaller

What a sporty day Wednesday 4 December 1974 must have been for me. Just in case you cannot read what the day’s entry says:

11th in chemistry.

Fives lost 15-3 to Wrightson & Weber, beat Mason & Candappa 15-7 and beat Pavasi & I Goodwin 15-3, 15-0.

Fridge ball 533.

Some of this perhaps needs explaining. “11th in chemistry” is and perhaps will remain a bit of a mystery. 11th in the year would be quite good; whereas 11th in the class more predictably mediocre in that subject. It’s not well explained in the diary; much like my answers in the chemistry test, no doubt.

No, it is the fives and the fridge ball that caught my eye for further exposition.

Four Sets Of Fives 

I have already written up a bit about fives – in a piece about a so-called uneventful day the following June – click here. But if you cannot be bothered to click, you should simply be aware that, at Alleyn’s, we played Rugby Fives and you should also be aware that Alan Cooke became my regular doubles partner, so I’m sure those doubles matches were teamed with him.

Looks as though Cookie and I warmed up as the afternoon went on; perhaps this was a breakthrough afternoon for our nascent doubles pairing. Earlier references to fives in my diary seem to be singles games.

Apologies to David Pavesi – firstly for the surprising mis-spelling of his name, as we knew each other well from primary school as well as at Alleyn’s. But also apologies to him and Ian “Milk” Goodwin for the drubbing. Why we played a second set against those two after a convincing first set I really cannot imagine. Perhaps they requested another chance. Perhaps we four wanted to play some more and everyone else had disappeared.

Fridge Ball

I suppose I do need to explain the magnificent and extraordinary sport of fridge ball, just in case the reader is unfamiliar with the game.

I realise at the time of writing (2016) that fridge ball has rather a lot in common with my current passion, the ancient game of real tennis – click here for one of my pieces and links on that game. 

In short, fridge ball is to table tennis what real tennis is to modern (lawn) tennis, but instead of a medieval courtyard, which is the theatre of play for real tennis, the theatre of play for fridge ball is a modern kitchen. Fridge ball is played with a ping-pong bat and a ping-pong ball.

Sadly, there are no photographs of the 3 Woodfield Avenue, London, SW16 fridge ball court as it looked in 1974, but there is a photograph of the court from 2012, when the house was being refurbished in preparation for letting – see below.

a347adaceb2a2e211f1e854e1054c2e38fe278f3_645_430

In front of the visible wall (to the left of the picture) stood a large 1960’s-style fridge-freezer; the surface against which the ball has to be hit. The floor surface back then was linoleum of a rather insipid hue. In the photograph you can actually see a layer of blue glue awaiting some fancy modern flooring substance, the suitability of which for fridge ball was not even tested.

The game, simply, is to hit the ball against the fridge door as many times as possible, ideally getting some interesting bouncy business off the floor and/or the jauntily angled pantry door (shown open in the photo but naturally closed for play) and/or the panel doors below the sink,and/or divider doors (just out of shot at the bottom of the photo, which at the time had helpfully unobtrusive recess slots rather than potentially rally-ruining handles).

If the ball is accidentally hit to the left of the fridge (to the kitchen entrance), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit to the the right of the fridge (an entrance that leads to a little laundry area and side door to the house), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit above the fridge, gawd help you because the ball will probably get stuck behind the fridge and is the devil’s own job to retrieve. Needless to say the rally is over but also, almost certainly, your enjoyment for the evening, as mum and dad take matters into their own hands to terminate the game at that juncture.

If you hit the ball hard enough for it to get some action off the back surface or the cooker, the ball is still in play but that is a dangerous tactic given the strange bounces you might get back there. Aficionados of real tennis might enjoy the idea of hitting the grill/grille – a winning shot in realers but merely part of the ongoing fun/difficulty in fridgers.

Where you can see drawers at the back of the court/right hand side of the photograph, in my day there was a recess under a surface there and a stool kept in that space.  If the ball went into that recess it was out and the rally was over, making the back of the court even more treacherous than it would be today.

A second bounce does not necessarily terminate the point, although most second bounce situations tend to lead to the ball not bouncing at all and ending up dead, which thus ends the rally.

It really is a magnificent game, full of skill and playable as an addictive solo game, not entirely unlike the pinball addiction that subsequently grabbed me for some time. Indeed given the size of our family kitchen, it worked best as a solo game.

But here’s the thing.

Fridge ball 533.

Just think about that for a moment. A 533 stroke rally. That is a remarkable score.

I think there was also a playing condition that allowed for externalities (such as mum wanting to do the washing up or dad wanting a cup of tea), such that the player could catch the ball in the non-bat hand (not scoring a stroke for the catch, btw) and then continue the rally once the interruption was over. Frankly, I can’t imagine having had the run of the kitchen for long enough to score 533 without such a playing condition. Not on a midweek evening after playing four sets of fives at school.

What a marathon sporting day.

Does anyone reading this piece remember playing fridge ball with me or similar games in their own (or other people’s) homes? I’d love to hear all about it if you did.

I Didn’t Just Learn Tennis In The School Easter Holidays Of 1974, I Smashed It

Stuart Harris & Me In My (Or Should I Say My Parents’) Garden, 1976

I wrote a “Fifty Years Ago” piece last week about my first tennis lesson:

Fifty Years Of Tennis, Starting At Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, 30 March 1974

I remembered that Andy and Fiona Levinson were involved and several other kids of our age from the street and local area. The following week’s diary is revealing in several additional ways.

I’ll transcribe the diary entries in full at the end of this article, because I want to focus on a couple of key facts that leap out of the page at me.

The first obvious point is that tennis gets a mention in every entry, except the Sunday one which was dominated by (Hebrew) classes and family s*it.

But the item that screamed off this page at me, inducing mixed emotions of joy and embarrassment, is the entry for 3 April:

Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!

The reason for my embarrassment is that I maintained, for best part of half a century, that I had never won anything at hand/racket sports.

True, there was the match that I had misremembered to be the crowning moment of my youthful play, a winning quarter-final against Johnny Eltham at Fives in 1975…

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

…an event rather ingeniously commemorated by Rohan Candappa – if you click the above link you can read about it.

Then an interval of best part of half a century, until, in 2022, real tennis success in The Lowenthal Trophy at Queen’s …

Finally…Unprecedented Success At Tennis, The Queen’s Club, 11 May & 27 May 2022

…when I again asserted, it seems wrongly, that I had never previously achieved tournament success.

Yet, it seems that my very first tournament, at Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, was, in fact, a winning one.

Just imagine the scale of that tournament and what it must have meant to all concerned. At least four participants (four are named in my diary piece). Further, the tournament was won by a couple of genuinely local boys.

Stuart Harris, my partner in crime for that tournament victory, is not a relative of mine. Our street, Woodfield Avenue, was blessed with a Harris family at each end.

Ours, the smaller Harris family, just me and my parents, at the north end of Woodfield Avenue. Stuart’s family, with multiple children, at the south end of the same road. Stuart’s dad was named Nathan, known as Naff. Stuart’s family were referred to as “The Naff Harrises” to distinguish them from our family, which might thus have been described as “The Tasteful Harrises”, but were probably known as “The Peter Harrises”…or possibly an adjective I would prefer not to learn about after all this time.

Parenthetically [did you see what I did there], calling my family “The Peter Harrises” would subsequently do no good at all, when another unrelated Peter Harris moved in next door to my parents’ house. A nightmare for the postal and delivery services ensued.

The headline photo shows me and Stuart larking around in The Tasteful Harris garden a couple of years later. Sadly, we have no pictures of me and Stuart in action, pulling off our stunning tournament victory that day in 1974, but I did commission DALL-E to reimagine the scene using AI technology and I think it has done quite well:

That tournament success seems to have preoccupied me so much that I simply scrubbed out the following two days. Presumably the celebrations went on deep into the night and then into the next night…

…or perhaps I was starting to lose interest in diary writing for a while, as evidenced by my seven month “sabbatical” between late April and late November that year.

Anyway, I shall use this diary discovery to try and reconnect with Stuart after all these years (I think I have found him) and we’ll see if any amusing memories and/or law suits ensue from him.

Postscript: Stuart Harris And I Are Indeed Now Back In Touch With One Another

Stuart, amongst many other things unrelated to this piece, points out that there was a Stewart in our street: Stewart Starkin, who quite probably was part of our tennis-take-up group that Easter. Indeed, re-reading my diary entry I strongly suspect that the name Stewart does indeed refer to the other Stewart and SH refers to Stuart Harris. That means that there must have been at least five of us in that tournament, which puts the victory on an even more impressive footing, don’t you think?

Here, For The Record, Is That Entire Diary Week Transcribed.

Sunday 31 March 1974 – Classes in morn. G Anne, Ida trouble [that means a family row]. VERY BAD DAY.

Monday 1 April 1974 – Tennis v good in morn. Afternoon OK. Andrew [Levinson] for badminton.

Tuesday 2 April 1974 – Tennis instruction v good. Classes good. Donuts for class notes. [Some form of sweetmeat bribery to do our studies, if I recall correctly]

Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!

Thursday X

Friday X

Saturday 6 April 1974 – Tennis morn. Afternoon uneventful. Seder v good – sung Ma Nishtana – v enjoyable evening.

Oh boy, was I hooked on the tennis early.

Here is another 1976 take on the dynamic duo that won that Woodfield Grove trophy in 1974 – the pictures below taken the same day as the headline picture:

Fifty Years Of Tennis, Starting At Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, 30 March 1974

At Boston Manor Tennis Club in 2016

On 30 March 1974 I played tennis “properly” for the first time. How do I know?

Diary says so. Allow me to transliterate the relevant cypher:

Saturday 30 March 1974 – joined tennis club. Learnt forhand [sic] and backhand. Shoped [sic] in p.m.

Apologies for the dreadful spelling of “forehand” and “shopped” in there – no wonder I had just come 27th in class that term, the second term of my secondary schooling.

The tennis club I joined was Woodfield Grove Tennis Club – still there.

This image by Benjamin Chan, “borrowed” from this site – click here

In 1974, the three courts you can see in the background – now described as “cushioned acrylic” which sounds well posh, were clay and were strictly adults only. We children had not been allowed in at all until most of us had reached the age of eleven – Fiona Levinson I think sneaked in with us before she had reached that age. Children were only allowed to play on the single court visible in the foreground. Now macadam, in those days it was a rather uneven concrete that might have had, at one time, a macadam component to it. Beginners and children only, I expect in those days, but good enough for us.

I seem to recall that the brains behind the operation was a rather formidable lady named Mrs Mussey, who I think lived in our street, Woodfield Avenue, just around the corner from Woodfield Grove.

I have a feeling that, unless you showed real talent and/or had parents who were willing and able to stump up some significant membership fees, the deal for children was a few starter lessons and then “be off with you”.

But that was Ok, my career in tennis was launched. Who wanted rather snooty clay courts that you weren’t allowed to use, when for a few pence you could play on municipal grass on Tooting Bec Common in the summer holidays. At school there were courts available too, although fives and cricket were more my thing than tennis at school.

As my diaries from the 1970s and 1980s attest – and countless more Ogblog pieces will reveal as I roll them out – tennis played a significant role in my childhood and my student days. Here are a couple of examples from the student years.

Anyone…And In Spring 1983 At Keele That Was Pretty Much Anyone…For Tennis?
Plenty of Tennis Between My Law Finals And My Economics Finals, Keele, 24 to 26 May 1984

Even more significantly, Janie and I played tennis (albeit sloppy, post-party tennis) the day we met at Kim & Micky’s party, in August 1992, and have played regularly in the decades since:

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

Janie and I started out in Lammas Park, but since around the turn of the century, Janie and I have played at Boston Manor Tennis Club, which has three courts in Boston Manor Park. Less formal than Woodfield Grove but just the ticket for us.

Janie and I rarely play lawn (modern) tennis anywhere else, except when we are on holiday, but I have played the odd game in more rarified surroundings…

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

At Boston Manor, we have had the occasional really splendid works outing…

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

…and it is only a slight exaggeration to describe one of my exploits as an international fixture:

International Tennis At Boston Manor Park: Victor, Heinrich, Jacques & Me, 11 March 2011

Get Real

I have also formed a deep enthusiasm for real tennis since 2016, which I mostly play at Lord’s but, like most realists, I am an addict who will play that game whenever the opportunity arises. here’s an example or two, including some video evidence as well as photographs:

How I Lost My Virginity Three Times In Less Than A Week, Yet Didn’t Lose A Match, 10, 14 & 15 October 2019
The MCC Tennis Weekend 2024: The Secret Diary Of Ian Harris Aged 61 and 5/12ths, 26 to 28 January 2024

But, for me, the tennis hobby all started on 30 March 1974, when I learnt forehand and backhand at Woodfield Grove Tennis Club – thanks Woodfield Grove.