Ged & Daisy gently watching on early in the day – Court 12
We had a truly lovely day at Wimbledon.
We were mostly there to see two quarter-finals on No. 1 Court:
Iga Swiatek v Liudmila Samsonova;
Jannik Sinner v Ben Shelton.
Unusually, we ended up seeing both of the eventual singles tournament winners in action on No. 1 Court that day.
LiudmilaIga to pleaseJannik & Ben at the tossJannik and his shadow in full flow
But before all that, as usual, we got Wimbledon well early and made a bee-line to Court 12, where we saw bits of:
Fabrice Santoro & Anne Keothavong v Nenad Zimonjic & Martina Navratilova;
Hannah Klugman v Charo Esquiva Banuls.
Anne & Fabrice foreground, Martina and Nenad behindHannah preparing to playCharo in full flow
I did a fair bit of wandering around during and between the quarter finals matches on No. 1 Court, mostly taking in some junior action or just taking in the atmosphere generally.
Anyway, Daisy and I did our usual thing in Leamington – stopping there for a game of real with Dr Snoddie & his pals; also lunching and shopping in that fine spa town, before driving on to Birmingham (Moseley).
This time we had taken an out house in a family home as our Airbnb, which was less eccentric than the 2024 place but not quite as spacious and posh as the 2022 place in Edgbaston.
Still, plenty of room for producing smoked trout and smoked salmon bagels, smoked chicken, duck and cheese sandwiches, grape and strawberry courses and assorted snacks.
Nigel joined me and Daisy for dinner at Sabai Sabai the night before the test started. Harsha was unable to join us until Day Two, hence his absence from the pre-test repast. He (and we) had very much enjoyed that place in 2024, much as we all did in 2025.
A fairly large table, including cricket writers Simon Wilde and John Etheridge also dined in Sabai Sabai that evening. Being cricket writers, they must be discerning folk who know what they are on about food-wise.
Nigel, Morg, Jonny & Me – photo by Daisy
Here we are gathered at the start of Day One, brimming with antici…
…pation.
Jonny Twophones was making a third appearance this year, while his friend, Huge Morg, whom I had met through Jonny at Lord’s a couple of years earlier, was making his first appearance at a Heavy Rollers event. Unfortunately we neglected to conduct Morg’s initiation ceremony this time, so it will have to be a more extreme version of the initiation next time. Something for everyone to look forward to.
Did Sam come and visit us at lunchtime on Day Two?
Yes. As well as this selfie, he also took the headline photo for us. Thanks Sam.
Of course he did.
Daisy took a good few photos around the back of the Eric Hollies Stand over the three days, which will find their way as an educational feature on the King Cricket website in the fullness of time. A link to that feature will be annexed soon after that fullness.
Here is an example of such a photo, not used in that feature.
Knight time is the right time.
My performance in the traditional Heavy Rollers prediction game was dismal this year, whereas Daisy, professing to “knowing nothing” did quite well for a change.
As always, the days seemed to fly by and sooner than we possibly could imagine we were all on our way.
I had hoped to get to Lord’s a bit earlier than 4:15 on Disability Cricket Day, but work and other necessities intervened. By the time I got to Lord’s, most of the peripheral activities had finished, although there were still plenty of people enjoying their day around the Nursey Ground, especially the small stand at the side of the Cricket Academy.
Some of my steward friends urged me to hurry round to the pavilion side of the ground, lest I missed the whole of the flagship match between England and India, as England were seven-down for diddly-squat.
But this was no day for hurrying – I ambled around with my tennis equipment in hand, with a view to stowing the equipment and working out where to sit.
I had no jacket and tie with me, but suspected that it would be a “relaxed dress code” day and that my smart casual look would be sufficient to gain entry into the pavilion.
I asked one of my steward friends whether it was relaxed dress code today.
Totally relaxed – they’ve even told us we can let people in wearing flip-flops today.
I was flabberghasted.
I wish I’d phoned to ask before I left home. I’ve always wanted to wear flip-flops in the pavilion.
Relaxed dress – I still have this longyi somewhere…and flip-flops
On asking one question about the nature of this disability match, another friendly steward handed me a programme – then I found a seat on the front terrace.
The programme was helpful in answering my questions about what “mixed disability” is. In short, there are three categories of disability cricket:
Physical Disability;
Deaf / Hearing Impairment;
Learning Disability.
This mixed disability format requires a mixed team because all three categories of disability need to be represented in the top four batting and each category needs to bowl at least 25% of the overs – thus requiring a minimum of two bowlers from each category.
Clever.
By the time I had got my head around it, the England innings had revived somewhat and were making a good game of it for the last few overs of its 20 over allocation.
That said, India set off in the power play looking as though they would make short shrift of the 124 target.
At that juncture, I realised that I needed to go to the dressing room and change for my next gig – real tennis club night, which I curate, so it would be rude to be late.
On my way out, as I progressed through the Long Room, I ran into Arfan Akram, besuited in a conventional MCC stylee, whom I know well from his role with Essex and my role with the London Cricket Trust.
After greeting me warmly, and us both agreeing that the disability cricket day seemed to be a great success, Arfan asked,
are you going to write this up on your blog?
You don’t say no to Arfan without good reason.
Yes, of course,
I said.
In truth, I was really impressed by the quality of the cricket. It is the first time I have seen this mixed disability format. I think it is a great idea, to showcase the best of the disability cricketers and to encourage players in each of those three disability categories to aspire to make the most of their talents.
I can’t find any video from the match I saw, but here is a YouTube of the mixed disability match earlier in the day, MCC v Middlesex D40 First XI, which was also a humdinger:
I tried to explain to anyone who’d listen to me that I should be allowed to represent at mixed disability cricket, given the ravages of time and the advent of Pinky, my brand-new hip.
I was politely informed that I wouldn’t be good enough, not that I really needed anyone to tell me, given the quality of cricket I had witnessed.
No such impediment for real tennis club night. We play a mixed ability format, the criterion for which is quite straightforward – all are welcome regardless of ability.
Just as well that criterion is simple, because real tennis is a complex game which we amateurs play on handicap. For “all are welcome” sessions such as club night, where several of the players tend to be of unknown or unsettled handicaps, I favour the use of sliding handicaps, to ensure that each set will tend towards a tight finish. Works almost every time.
Again, no footage from club night itself (heaven forbid) but I do have some footage of several of us regular “Club-night-istas” at play in early February, just before I parted company with Pinky’s organic predecessor.
Of the four of us depicted, only me and Mike Lay were at Club Night this June. Mike was my nemesis on that February “quarter-final-like” occasion, and proved to be so again at Club Night, even though my ability to move has already come on leaps and bounds since February and the op.
It is wonderful, though, to be back on court playing with my friends again, without pain and at something starting to approach the level to which I aspire.
Back To Lord’s The Next Morning For Some Endorsing, While The MCC & MCC Foundation Launched The Knight-Stokes Cup
Young people…at Lord’s…enjoying themselves? Whatever next?
After a physiotherapy session first thing (planned, I hasten to add, not a reaction to the tennis the night before, which my body seemed to absorb most satisfactorily), I returned at 9:15 to Lord’s for a full morning of candidate endorsing.
When I agreed to endorse on the morning of 26 June, I didn’t realise that we’d end up doing the interviews in The President’s Suite of the Grandstand, while the MCC and the MCC Foundation launched the wonderful Knight-Stokes Cup for independent schools:
In some ways, there was something incongruous about conducting candidate endorsement interviews on such an auspicious occasion. Hardly any, if any of the candidates we interviewed that day had been to a state school. Still, the MCC can only do its best to try and widen its demographic; the Knight-Stokes Cup is one of the better ideas behind which the club is throwing its weight.
My interviewing partner for the session was Steven Bishop, another real tennis enthusiast who, coincidentally, had been one of my nemeses in the 2024 real tennis club weekend – on that occasion in a nail-biting semi-final:
But I digress.
We mostly interviewed young folk in this session and tried our best to present a very 21st century demeanour. Steven, in particular, spoke with them in detail about the MCC Foundation and the wonderful work it does, both nationally and internationally.
Steven did, however, on one occasion, while waxing lyrical about all the wonderful work the Foundation does overseas, mention Zaire, which slightly took me aback, partly because I had no idea that the MCC Foundation was active in DR Congo (I’m not 100% sure it is), and secondly because that country hasn’t been called Zaire since the previous millennium (1997 to be precise). I held my tongue. At least that small error is steeped in the late 20th century and not the 19th century, where the typical and unfair caricature of an MCC member, blissfully unaware that Queen Victoria is no longer with us, is perceived mentally to reside.
After six interviews I parted company with Steven and progressed, after a very short break for some lunch, to…
Steep Myself In The MCC’s 19th Century History – Research In The Library On Spencer Ponsonby-Fane & Other Related Topics
As part of my research for my forthcoming talk & small treatise on the emergence of the laws of tennis (lawn variety) around 1875, a central character in that story is Sir Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane, who chaired the MCC Tennis committee at the time those laws emerged and who also founded what is now MCC Heritage and Collections, including the Library and Museum.
Alan Rees in the library, as usual, was enormously helpful and had found some fascinating stuff for me to examine – some of which is highly pertinent to my talk and some of which is the sort of wonderful rabbit hole down which I like to dive when doing this sort of research.
When Alan told me about it, I thought the Ricardo in question was John Lewis Ricardo, perhaps the most famous of the nephews of the great political economist David Ricardo. But no, the cricket-loving Ricardo who was one of the first members of I Zingari and thus hanging out with Spencer Ponsonby and the like, was one of John Lewis Ricardo’s younger brothers, Albert Ricardo, whose wife, Charlotte Ricardo, aka Daisy, compiled the album.
It’s a shame that John Lewis Ricardo was not the cricketer, as I wanted to say that he was “never knowingly under bowled”. I’ve said it anyway.
Soon after 4:00, I decided that it would only be polite for me to return home and start preparing the birthday meal that I had promised my own Daisy, so I headed off around 4:15, almost exactly 24 hours after I arrived for the first of my four activities, having spent more time at Lord’s during that 24 hour period than away from the place.
I was heavily sedated on the morning the LTA released tickets for the ATP event at The Queen’s Club this year; 11 February.
By the time I regained my compos mentis…to the extent that my mentis is ever truly compos…Pinky, my brand-new hip was in place, my non-functioning, organic right hip had gone…and so had most of the decent-looking seats for the ATP at Queen’s.
“No matter”, I thought, in what might have still been a drug-induced state of relaxed acceptance. Ground passes are just £30 a pop and I’m sure I’ll be able to get good seats for the Queen’s WTA tournament when they come out…which I did:
This seemingly unfortunate timing turned out to be a jolly good thing, as Janie and I had a super day at Queen’s without “troubling the stewards” of the main Andy Murray Arena.
On Court One, which ground passes cover, there were to be two excellent looking doubles matches. Although I got very confused as to how many players we would actually see.
First Match: Three Gentlemen Against Two – Arévalo González & Pavić v Mektić & Venus
Marcelo Arévalo González: “There’s only one of me, you twit!”
The problem with modern trends away from the use of punctuation is that you can never be entirely sure where you stand.
Had the reading source I chose stated: “Arévalo-González & Pavić v Mektić & Venus” I’d have understood. I’d also have understood had they used the Oxford comma: “Arévalo González, & Pavić v Mektić, & Venus”. But in the absence of punctuation I assumed we would be seeing three gentlemen against two – which was, after all, a perfectly regular mode of tennis play in Baroque times…
…and which I thought might explain why Arévalo González & Pavić are the top ranked team in the world at the moment.
Anyway, the scoreboard on Court One was quite clear that we were to see “Arévalo & Pavić v Mektić & Venus, so it was not a complete surprise when only four players emerged.
Nikola Mektić & Michael VenusMate Pavić
The Appliance Of Science To Avoid The Inferno
A pair of shady customers in the small, western stand of Court One
…I did some complex geometrical analysis of my own, ahead of setting off to Queen’s, to ascertain which area on Court One was likely to be in the shade the earliest.
Until my treatise has been peer-reviewed I shall not be disclosing my methods. Suffice it to say that my theory played out in practice, which was a real blessing on such a hot day.
Janie and I took turns to go out and refill the water bottles and/or get some iced coffee. We also scoffed our smoked salmon bagels with impunity, once we were in the shade, soon after 14:00.
The young stewards on and around Court One were very friendly and also very helpful.
It was rather a long wait for the second match of the day on Court One; Jacob Fearnley needed to finish his singles match and rest a while before it could start. But from our point of view waiting around in the shade was well worth it, not least because we had spent a full day at Queen’s the week before during the WTA, so had no great desire to look around the exhibition stands.
Second Match: Two Brits & Fritz
Those helpful young stewards started to “advertise” the impending doubles match to inquisitive passers-by as “two Brits & Fritz”. I wondered whether we were to see two gentlemen against one – otherwise known as Canadian Doubles.
Two Brits & Fritz: Taylor Fritz, Jacob Fearnley & Cameron Norrie
After all, but for the unfortunate absence of Señor González earlier in the day, we’d have seen three gentlemen against two, so this sort of made sense.
Eustace Miles, Victorian/Edwardian multiple Queen’s champion, doyen of tennis, rackets and much much more
Further, Eustace Miles much preferred playing tennis two against one if he could not play singles
As a variation, the Three-handed Game is good. One of the best Matches I have ever had was at Boston, when I played against Messrs. Fearing and Stockton. They have practised together as a pair again and again, and they probably form the best working pair and combination of all amateurs. It was capital exercise, and I cannot imagine anything more enjoyable. But I can count on my fingers the Four-handed Games that I have enjoyed.
Yet, when the players emerged, Taylor Fritz brought Jiri Lehecka with him, perhaps attempting an element of surprise or ambush.
Had Team GB doubles coach Louis Cayer been nobbled?Clearly Daisy had been taken by surpriseCam Norrie above, Jacob Fearnley belowSurprise package Jiri Lehecka looks super-fitTwo Brits, Steak & Fritz
But the Brits were not to be outflanked. An excellent win for Messrs Fearnley and Norrie – they could be a formidable doubles pairing should they choose to persevere with their partnership, we both felt.
We avoided the crush at Barons Court Station by walking away the long way around and stopping for a couple of games of table tennis before heading for the exit.
The ground pass thing was very different from any day Janie and I have spent at the tennis before, but still a most enjoyable, relaxing day. Maybe I should try being sedated on the day that LTA tickets are released more often.
Squeezed between two days at Lord’s for the ICC World Test Championship final…and then another day at Lord’s for that final, I took a break from cricket at Lord’s by going to Queen’s for a day to watch tennis with Janie.
Friday 13 June turned out to be a very hot day indeed, which is potentially more problematic for us at Queen’s, where we had allocated seats in the sun, than at Lord’s, where I can pick and choose a bit more.
Still, we had a good time, not least because it was an excellent day of tennis.
This is the first time there has been a women’s tournament at this professional level since the early 1970s – i.e. a few months before I picked up a racket for the first time.
Anyway, more than fifty years after I lost my tennis virginity, we saw:
Madison Keys beat Diana Shnaider
Tatjana Maria beat Elena Rybakina
Qinwen Zheng beat Emma Raducanu
Amanda Anisimova beat Emma Navarro
Shnaider serving to Keys
I took one stroll mid match during the first match and checked out the facilities.
One of the “benefits” of a day at Queen’s rather than Lord’s is that I don’t expect to run into a cricketing colleague, friend or acquaintance every five yards or so. Yet, on leaving the Arena at Queen’s, within about five yards, I ran into Josh Knappett, who is my main Middlesex CC link in my capacity as Middlesex’s Trustee on the London Cricket Trust. Josh was even sporting an MCC hat. Always a pleasure to see Josh, of course, but it made both me and Janie laugh when I reported back to her on this chance encounter.
When you’re hot, you’re hot…
Less amusing was the heat and the crowds as we all left the arena at the end of the first match. I did suggest that we turn right rather than left on exit, but Janie spotted a “toilets” sign and got us caught up in heaving dead end misery at the club house end of the campus, where a fight nearly broke out (not us, I hasten to add). Some folk (again, not us) tank up with alcohol to add to the strain of the heat on such days.
Anyway, we changed tack and ended up at the less-heaving end of the campus, where we observed some fine players practicing and took some delicious iced coffee to cool ourselves down.
Above, Neal Skupski, below, Joe Salisbury Amanda Anisimova practicing
We took advantage of some shade and air conditioning at the exhibition stand end of the ground before returning to see the end of the Maria v Rybakina match.
Above, Elena Rybakina, below, Tatjana Maria
Our smoked trout bagels (lovingly prepared by me in the morning before I went to the physiotherapist and the gym) were not going to eat themselves. I can faithfully report that they indeed did not eat themselves; we ate them. We also ate some hand-made crisps, cheese clouds pretzel thins, strawberries and grapes. Not all at once – throughout the afternoon and early evening.
Next up Qinwen Zheng (who now prefers to be known as Zheng Qinwen apparently) against Emma Raducanu.
We took a break during that match, for comfort and for a game of table tennis in the sponsors exhibition area. My new found stability and confidence transferred to table tennis, where I recorded a rare win over Janie.
Janie’s rage almost certainly knew no bounds at this juncture, but she did a grand job of behaving as if she was having a good time and cared not about the table tennis result.
Soon after our return to our seats, the penultimate match ended and the last match of the day began.
Above, Emma Navarro, below, Amanda Anisimova
After the first set, Janie looked up and said that her internal weather detector sensed rain approaching. Strangely, AccuWeather agreed, suggesting that we had some 40 minutes or so before the rain would start.
We decided, wisely I think, to leg it at that juncture, avoiding the heave at the gates and getting home in time to catch the end of the last match on the telly.
Far be it from me to pretend to be a Jester. But this was a match at The Queen’s Club, so I am in the habit of representing various different teams there, regardless of whether I am actually a member of that club (e.g. MCC, The Dedanists’ Society) or not (e.g. The Queens Club itself, or, for this match, The Jesters Club).
In this instance, I wasn’t supposed to be playing at all. I had promised myself, and my surgeon, that Pinky, my brand-new hip, would be spared competitive matches and tournaments until the autumn. But when the call comes from Tony Friend, it’s difficult to say no…especially when he says, “feel free to say no”, in his “please help” tone of voice.
Also, the call to play the kick-off rubber of this match, as a substitute Jester, could be construed as more like the friendly hours of doubles that I am now playing, than a fierce competitive bout. I said “yes”.
“Would you also be willing to write the match report please? …fully understand if not,” said Tony.
The gentle art of watching on: Anton, Patrick & Josh (above) – Peter, Jon, Tabby & Jez (below)
Had anyone present been paying attention to the scores, they would have seen a match that built to a tremendous climax. First the Jesters took the lead, then the Dedanists’ clawed it back and took the lead, then the Jesters levelled the match again. After six rubbers, there had been two wins for each side and a couple of drawn rubbers. Naturally the final rubber went to a nail-biting one-set-all, five-games-all decider that was determined in favour of the Dedanists’ by a whisker.
James, Stuart, James & Paul. Did any of them know their rubber was determining the match?
But in truth, no-one was paying attention to the scores, other than a vague interest in the rubber that was in front of those indulging in the gentle art of watching tennis. Such is the way of matches such as this, between two peripatetic sides, with many players eligible for both teams and some, like me, representing the team for which they are not eligible.
The well-worn but suitable phrase on such occasions is that tennis was the winner. Several hundred pounds raised for the Dedanist’s Society, after a convivial afternoon and evening at Queen’s, playing & watching tennis, then dining and chatting with friends. Bliss.
Scrubbed up for the Friday evening bash – photo by Jonathan Ellis-Miller
This year’s Ogblog report on this wonderful MCC event is authored by a special correspondent, “Two Loos” Le Trek, who chooses to write up my experience in the first person. My noms de plume are getting out of hand.
Build Up & Day One: Friday 31 January 2025
I received a somewhat excited WhatsApp from Giles Stogdon just over two weeks before the event. He’d learned that we’d been drawn to partner each other. We agreed that we were both pleased with that idea and found an opportunity to partner for an hour of doubles before the weekend, as we have recently spent more time opposing one another than partnering.
…this year I had no trouble banishing the negative thoughts, other than my slight concern that my mobility issues resulting from my cartilage-free hip might hamper me in battle with the high-achievers that populate Group B.
Anyway, I threw myself into practice and match play in the run up to the 2025 tournament:
On arrival – quite late in the morning Friday as our two matches spanned lunchtime – I plonked myself in the pavilion home dressing room, as the tennis dressing room was heaving by then.
The Captain’s place remained available for me…again!
My Ged Ladd persona has written about this phenomenon elsewhere:
Unlike regular matches and tournaments, the club weekend comprises vignette matches, played on the clock for 25 minutes including changeover and warm-up. When the alarm goes, only completed games count.
On Day One, Giles & I got off to a slow yet solid start. We drew our first round robin match, against Iain Harvey & Roger Davis, but managed to prevail in our second match against Nick Davidson & Paul Wickman.
I have scraped my matches (along with some highlights of the whole tournament for the “official” match report) onto YouTube.
If you are sufficiently potty, you might choose to watch some or all of the play in these YouTube films.
A Sufficiently Potty Subplot: A Tale Of Two Shitties
Peter Luck-Hille, a doyen of real tennis if ever there was one, has, in the last year, been through the hip replacement process. He has provided me with lots of helpful advice over the past few months.
Peter kindly offered to lend me his raised toilet seats, which are an absolute must, at least for the first few days or weeks at home, until the recovering leg is comfortably mobile enough for a normal-height toilet seat.
“No point you buying them – you’ll not need them for long”, said Peter.
Peter was due to play in the tournament, so we planned to shift the bulky goods from car boot to car boot on the Friday of the tournament.
But plans sometimes go awry. Unbeknown to me, Peter was poorly in the run up to the tournament and withdrew. Despite his indisposition, he kindly transported the seats to Lord’s earlier in the week, where they adorned the pros office in the run up to the tournament.
Chris Bray accosted me as soon as he saw me and asked, as politely as only he is able, to get those hideous things out of the pros office as soon as possible. He said they were lowering the tone of the place.
“Don’t you mean raising the tone?”, I said, “they are certainly in the business of raising something”.
We agreed that I would shift the items into my car after I had played my Friday afternoon matches.
I didn’t particularly want to be seen struggling through reception and into Car Park No 6 with those items, so I picked what I thought was a tactically smart time to do the deed – towards the end of the rubber after mine, when most of the players who were still around would be watching.
Yet somehow, despite my seemingly cunning timing, I was of course destined to bump into friends while I did the deed. Piers Vacher, for example, and Rob Stain, the latter bringing some nominative determinism to this comedy of embarrassment.
“If only I had my camera with me”…
…said, Rob, kindly.
I changed and stopped over at the flat Friday night into Saturday morning. The loo seats remained in the back of my car, covered with tarpaulin, until I returned to the house on Saturday evening. For some inexplicable reason, I chose not to schlep two loo seats up into the flat on Friday afternoon and then back down again on Saturday.
On arrival at the house, where Janie sanitised them. If she could have fitted them in her autoclave, she’d have autoclaved them.Not their final resting place, obviously, but where Pu & Pi (as they are now named) await action.
The Friday Evening Bash – Concluding With A Differently Potty Tale
Me with Clive Picton, photo by Jonathan Ellis-Miller
On Friday evening, dinner in the Committee Dining Room was great. I sat next to Clive Picton on one side and Tony Joyce on the other – both people I have played with and chatted with over the years but had not caught up with for a while.
The food was very good, as usual. A smoked salmon fillet thing with interesting garnish as a starter, a chicken supreme with mushroom sauce and trimmings as the main and a crumble of some description for afters…
…can you tell that I forgot to grab one of the menus as I left?
The after dinner speech was by realist Lindsay MacDuff, aka The Culture Colonel, then cheese, port, coffee, chocolates and all that. I was quite abstemious by the standards of most, but not THAT abstemious given the special occasion.
I was among the last few to leave, yet knew nothing that night about the curious…some might say potty…incident that occurred at the end of the evening. I learnt about it the next day from Jonathan Ellis-Miller.
The Mouse Cricket Caper is a lovely book, authored by MCC member and realist Mark Trenowden, set in the Lord’s pavilion. The climax of the story depends on an unfortunate incident on the night after the traditional MCC v Melbourne match in July 2013, in which a comedic MCC member named McCrackers gets locked in a pavilion toilet and then, after breaking out of the loo and into the pavilion proper, witnesses the pivotal match between the Lord’s pavilion mice and a team of chancer rats.
In truth, I found it hard to suspend belief at the bit where McCrackers gets locked in the toilet, as I have always imagined the stewarding to be especially sharp about making certain that the pavilion has been vacated.
Yet, somehow, at our event, Nigel Smith and Piers Vacher conspired inadvertently to get themselves locked outside on the Committee Dining Room balcony at the end of the evening. Apparently they were enjoying one last crafty cigarette and admiring the beauty of the ground while doing so.
This picture by Janie from two floors further down, February 2023
Fortunately the story has a happy, albeit comedic ending, as Nigel & Piers were able to alert staff who were still clearing up inside and escape relatively unfrozen. It would have been a long cold night stuck out there, that’s for sure.
I haven’t asked either Nigel or Piers if they saw any rats or mice during their lock-in adventure. In any case, they might not be reliable witnesses to their own perception of murine match play (or lack thereof) at that late stage of the evening’s libations.
Day Two: Sweet Success, But With Cats Set Amongst Pigeons, Will It Be Enough?
Never mind fictional rats and mice, metaphorical cats started to scurry around metaphorical pigeons very early in Day Two – long before Group B combatants started to do battle that day.
In elite Group A, two pairs Rufus Parkes & George Dickson, plus Tony Joyce & Foreman Wickes had shown very strongly on Day One, with Ben Martin & Kate Evers also showing well. On the Friday evening, I suggested that the matches between those three pairs, plus the match in which Ben Martin’s pair would do battle with his dad’s pair, Simon Martin & Ronald Paterson, were to be “the popcorn matches” of the round robin stage.
Unfortunately, as I settled down with my metaphorical popcorn at the flat to watch the stream on Saturday morning…it was more like cornflakes than popcorn in truth…Foreman Wickes sustained a horrible-looking forearm injury during warm up. Foreman bravely laboured through the bout and Paul Cattermull kindly stepped in to take his place in the subsequent matches, but that incident really opened up Group A.
Group D was relatively cat and pigeon free, with two pairs, Adrian Fox & Anton Eisdell, plus Sebastian Maurin & Brian Woodbridge, showing strongly on Day One and continuing to shine on Day Two. There were plenty of close matches though, not least a third pairing, Douglas Brewster and David Shannon, who stayed close to the top two throughout the tournament and pulled off more draws than…[insert your own, potentially politically incorrect, metaphor here].
It was the first Group B match of Day Two that sent my group into a “cats among pigeons” maelstrom, when Davidson & Wickman defeated Lay and Wise in an exciting and well fought round robin match, opening up the group to all manner of possibilities, not least that those two teams might now be the ones to progress.
Similarly, in Group C, two pairs – Piers Vacher & Peter Brunner plus Ben Havey & Sam Walker had shown strongly on Day One, with fancied pair Matt Glyn & Andrew Hinds narrowly defeated by the latter of those pairs late on Friday. But the first Group C game on Saturday, between reigning champions Brunner & Vacher v Glyn & Hinds, was another thriller which ended in defeat for reigning pair.
Is it possible that the near miss on the Committee Dining Room balcony affected Messrs Vacher and Smith the next day? Neither of them recorded a win with their respective partners on the Saturday.
In truth, Nigel Smith might look to his partner, Jonathan Ellis-Miller and wonder what might have been against me and Giles Stogdon that afternoon, had Jonathan tried a less forceful style. Giles and I had agreed that, if we lost the toss, Giles would take Nigel’s serve (which often requires twisting to the backhand side) and I would take Jonathan’s, not least because Jonathan was bound to try and hit my serve to kingdom come. After the event, word is, Jonathan had promised Nigel that he intended to do just that. What could possibly go wrong?
It was actually a very close match, but the percentages were, I’d suggest, in our favour, given the predictable attacking approach. Ellis-Miller hit three grilles in the above short match. I managed one grille but also achieved a chase off when chasing better than half-a-yard. I think it is only the second time I have ever landed on better than half-a-yard to win or neutralise a chase. The other occasion, which won the chase, got me a bottle of champagne in my first ever Lowenthal Trophy appearance in 2019. #justsayin.
Returning to Lord’s in February 2025, Giles Stogdon and I knew that our match against Giles Pemberton & George Richards, towards the end of Day Two, would be a “more or less must win” rubber.
It was a nail-biter of a match which we did, narrowly, win:
Thus, we went home at the end of Day Two with three wins and a draw, but still we knew that we would probably need one or two points off Lay and Wise the next day to qualify.
Day Three: Dénouements Aplenty
I must have been in a state of great excitement first thing that morning. I wanted to watch the stream for a while, not least the first match of the day. Had Pemberton & Richards overcome Davidson & Wickman, it would have resulted in my pair being guaranteed a semi-final place. But it wasn’t to be. We would need a draw or a win.
Janie left for her Samaritans shift while that first match was in progress, suggesting that she might get more sense out of her callers than she was getting out of me that morning. Fair point.
I continued pottering at home and watching the stream, even catching the excellent “father against son” popcorn match…more like a fistful of kikones in my case to be honest… that was S Martin & Paterson v Evers and B Martin…
…which was a very good match. There were strange clattering noises off, coming from the side gallery, as the players left the court (see the end of the above film). Both Simon & Ben Martin deny that it was argy-bargy between them. They have clearly paid off the witnesses, as Andrew Hinds claims, unconvincingly, that the noise arose when he sent a few water bottles flying while trying to do that “pass people in the side gallery” thing. Hard to imagine, that.
As I had done on both the other days, I went to Lord’s via BodyWorksWest, my health club, to do some stretching and warm up ahead of battle. By so doing, I was spared the sight of the second “father against son” match of the morning, S Glyn & Boys-Stones v M Glyn & Hinds, which very unfortunately resulted in the latter pair needing to withdraw, despite having qualified for the semis, when Matt incurred a nasty injury on court. Hopefully Matt’s young body will heal fast. Alex Gibson & Rob Stain qualified in their place and did well to reach the C/D final.
Our last round robin match was, to all intents and purposes, a quarter-final for an A/B semi-final place, from which a draw would have been good enough for us, whereas it was a must win game for Lay and Wise.
It was a really good game. We stayed close, getting to 3-3 and at one stage were a couple of points away from pulling off a win, but it was not to be for me and Giles Stogdon. Still, an honourable third in Group B and getting to within two points of topping our group and a semi-final place, is a pretty decent result.
After a break for some lunch, shower and change, we were ready to watch for the rest of the afternoon. We caught both of the A/B semi-finals, the C/D final and the A/B final.
Did you say you want to see those matches? OK then. All are good, but I would say that the first of the four films below – Lay & Wise v Parkes & Dickson, is the most watchable of the tournament, followed closely by the Evers & Martin v Davidson & Wickman semi-final:
Neither of the finals were quite so tight, but the spirit in the dedans gallery was terrific, with lots of people sticking around to watch, cheer and clap.
So that’s it, for now, for me. No more matches and tournaments until I am all better with my hip – hopefully just a few months.
It was a wonderful weekend – such good fun tennis, plus social time with the wonderful friends I have made through this extraordinary game.
No doubt I shall dream of all that while I sit on one or other of my elevated on-loan-thrones over the next few weeks.
And perhaps, before all the anaesthetics and sedatives have fully worn off, I might envisage teams of rats and mice playing rodent-realers against each other.
Johnny Saunders claps my lunge winner as my hip twinges in appreciation
One of my favourite comedy sketches of all time is a Peter Cook & Dudley Moore sketch named “One Leg Too Few”. It wouldn’t pass some people’s 2025 political correctness tests, but it still passes mine. The conceit of it is a one-legged Dudley Moore auditioning for the role of Tarzan, with casting director Peter Cook dispensing a mixture of common sense discouragement and surreal encouragement to the job applicant, in a style that only Peter Cook could deliver. I recommend that you watch it on the link below.
MCC v Old Harrovians, 22 January 2025
I was reminded of this sketch when I got an unexpected call from Harsha Boralessa, who organises the traditional MCC v Old Harrovians match, less than 10 days before the 2025 fixture. I had sent Harsha a note back in August or September 2024 volunteering to represent the MCC in this fixture but had assumed that “no news means not selected” and had more or less forgotten about it.
By the time Harsha called to see if I could play, I was in the process of scheduling my right hip replacement, having ascertained that there is nothing left in my right hip that might be described as cartilage, which might explain why I am now hobbling around the court, rather than leaping around the place like a gazelle.
Your left hip is fine, Mr Harris. I’ve nothing against the cartilage in your left hip. The problem is, (by way of right hip cartilage), neither have you…
I explained my impediment to Harsha, while making it clear that, as an addict, I would like to play because I ALWAYS like the idea of playing tennis rather than not playing tennis.
Seemingly oblivious to the impediment aspect, Harsha simply said:
…but can you be there for a prompt four o’clock start?
Hence, in the absence of a two-legged applicant for the role, I got the gig.
Old Harrovians have historically been well subscribed with fine players of the hard ball games – cricket, rackets, fives and tennis.
William Hart Dyke – rackets, cricket, tennis (real and lawn)…
Modern times seems to be no exception, with the vast majority of the players in this match being both Old Harrovians and MCC members. Only two or three of us who represented the MCC were from other schools.
I had always imagined that this fixture was designed for players “above my pay grade” – i.e. with much better handicaps than mine. For sure, several of the players and some of the rubbers were far more high falutin’ affairs than I could ever manage, fit or not. Indeed, Ed Turner, who partnered me for the MCC, despite being way above my pay grade, went on to play a second rubber for the Old Harrovians against the MCC. The fellow couldn’t lose…or couldn’t fail to lose, depending on how you look on it.
But that, it seems to me, is the central premise of this fixture. A really interesting and friendly bunch of people enjoying a convivial match with the bonus of a traditional MCC curry supper to round off the evening. The fact that the quality of tennis spanned athletes with handicaps in the 20s to hobbling wrecks like me with handicaps in the 50s or 60s didn’t seem to matter a jot.
Would Edward Chandos Leigh, another Old Harrovian and MCC Chairman from that bygone era, have approved of such convivial amateur sportsmanship?
You can bet your infeasibly slick hair and shiny top hat that he would have done.
MCC v Dedanists, 25 January 2025
Carl Snitcher, that match guvnor, at this very fixture five years ago
The Dedanists’ Society, like the Old Harrovians, is a peripatetic team. And much like the Old Harrovians fixture I have just described, when MCC play The Dedanists, most of the participants are eligible to play for both sides.
I first played this fixture before I was a Dedanist, in 2018. On that occasion I partnered Carl Snitcher for the MCC:
The second time I played this fixture, in 2020, I was by then a Dedanist but was expecting to represent the MCC again. Tipped off by a friendly professional, I put both shirts into my bag just in case, which was just as well, as I found myself being a late switch onto the Dedanists’ team. My first game partnering Martin Village and my last representative match before the pandemic.
No amount of “but Carl, I’m a hobbling wreck” talk was going to put Carl off from selecting me to play for The Dedanists in this match in 2025. In truth, I fancied a competitive hit ahead of the club weekend and also quite wanted Janie to see my hobble at this stage of my hip degeneration so she might help gauge my post operative progress.
I requested a late in the day match, so Janie and I might get other necessities (including an hour of “lawn”) done before Lord’s. The traffic between W3 and NW8 was ridiculous that afternoon; I allowed an extra half hour over the normal journey time of 30 minutes and we used 29-and-a-half of my 30 minute leeway.
No matter – the stress of the journey allowed me to hang up my hang-ups before the game and play pretty well by my own ordinary standards. It helped that I was partnering Johnny Saunders, who is a great competitor who nevertheless plays with a smile on his face, or “for fun” as I put it at one point in our match.
We were a set and 3-2 down as one stage, but managed to turn things around in the end, mostly by dint of Johnny getting better and better. My hobble was possibly more distracting to my opponents than it was to me. Looking at this video of the last 20 minutes of the game, I must admit that I look quite incapable of getting to the ball a lot of the time and yet somehow get just enough onto the ball, awkwardly to keep the point going.
While I’m rehabbing, if I ever have doubts about why I am replacing that hip, I should look at this video to assure myself that I couldn’t possibly go on like that for the rest of my life.
I think Janie enjoyed her afternoon at Lord’s – the Dedanists and the MCC folk who play/watch this fixture are a very friendly crowd.
Our day was rounded off by a most enjoyable evening at the Hampstead Theatre, which included a mystery post match / pre show interview.
The worlds of tennis and theatre were intertwined for several centuries from the Renaissance onwards. I describe these connections in some detail, in the context of late Renaissance England, in the performance piece I wrote for The Gresham Society event at Hampton Court in the summer of 2023:
And there is surely no-one in the world who knows more about late medieval tennis and theatre than Cees de Bondt, who wrote THE book about tennis in Renaissance Italy, including a whole chapter entitled Tennis Courts Used As Theatres.
So, when Chris Bray, the senior real tennis professional at Lord’s, told me in early December that Cees de Bondt would be visiting in early January, that Chris thought we’d have a lot of shared interest in Renaissance tennis to discuss, and asked whether I would like to join them for lunch, I said:
yes please.
Then I got one of my attacks of imposter syndrome. I thought, I’d better mug up on the subject of tennis in Renaissance Italy, so I ordered a copy of Cees’s book, and, ahead of its arrival, arranged an appointment with the MCC library copy of said book.
My copy arrived during Twixtmas. I was just over half way through the book come the appointed day for the lunch, 9 January. I brought my copy with me for Cees to sign. I even remembered to bring a pen with me for the signing, which is more than can be said for my own first ever book signing:
Cees and Chris Bray go back several decades, to 1986 to be precise, when Cees and the Dutch Real Tennis Association had their first real encounter with real tennis. It was very kind of Chris to invite me to join them for lunch. Also at lunch was Cees’s charming travelling companion, Lenne Van Leusden, who is studying English and Theatre at University.
I told Cees that I had quite a few questions for him about Renaissance tennis in Italy.
That’s OK, I have a few questions for you too,
said Cees, before answering my questions very thoughtfully and engaging in lots of interesting discussion about real tennis, past present and future.
Some of Cees (and Leene’s) questions, to me, were about theatre, not least because they were keen to find some good serious, perhaps fringe, theatre to see that weekend.
Rather short notice, I thought, but I skimmed through the listings with them pointing out one or two possibilities, before mentioning A Good House at the Royal Court, as Janie and I would be going to that one on Saturday evening.
As luck would have it, there was a pair of good seats available for that evening (returns I should imagine given the dearth of seats left for that night), which Chris Bray helped them to snap up after our lunch and the mini-tour of Lord’s upon which I hastily took the visitors.
Lord’s Pavilion (top) & Villa D’Este (bottom) – A Good House brings good fortune, eh?
Janie and I arranged to meet Cees and Lenne for a drink before the play at The Royal Court, which was a lovely opportunity to continue our conversations, a little more in the modern theatre context than the medieval tennis context this time, and for Janie to meet these good people.
A Good House, Royal Court Theatre, 11 January 2025
We loved this play/production. By we, I am sure I can add Cees and Leene to the votes of me and Janie. We saw the first preview and/but the production was very slick and the play seemed to work extremely well, so we imagine we saw the production pretty much as it will run.
Amy Jephta is a South African playwright and this piece is very much a modern South African play. It is a co-production with the Bristol Old Vic and The Market Theatre Johannesburg, the piece having been commissioned jointly by The Royal Court and The Fugard Theatre.
While the piece is firmly rooted in a South African style middle-class suburban community, the issues with which the piece grapples: community, identity, race, class and the fear of invasion from the outside…
…all seemed to be very relevant and topical issues to Western societies, indeed the whole world today.
The play was funny (mostly but not only “comedy of embarrassment”), dramatic, sad and thought-provoking. The acting throughout was excellent. Stand out performances, for me, were Sifiso Mazibuko and Mimî M Khayisa, who played Sihle and Bonolo respectively, but all four other performers, Kai Luke Brummer, Olivia Darnley, Robyn Rainsford & Scott Sparrow performed their parts very well.
This production runs only until 8 February, so I would suggest that interested readers book early to avoid disappointment, as we’ll be most surprised if the formal reviews after press night on 17 January don’t lead to a rush to snap up the remaining seats.
…to join him for an afternoon watching quality doubles at The British Open, followed by dinner, with Janie and Geraldine joining us for the grub bit.
Richard secured us front row seats in the dedans gallery, where we saw the following quarter-finals:
Rob Fahey & Steve Virgona v Louis Gordon & Rob Shenkman;
Tim Chisholm & Camden Riviere v Vaughan Hamilton & John Woods-Casey.
On arrival, I ran into a great many real tennis friends – many of whom I know from Lord’s. Indeed, Richard and I estimated that, at the start of that afternoon session, there were more MCC members than Queen’s members watching!
Janie made good time getting to Queen’s for dinner, so was able to join us for the last 20-30 minutes of the second match we saw.
Feeling envious that you didn’t see those matches? Or wondering what they looked like? Or wanting to refresh your memory? Here are the highlights reels for those two matches. I recall a great many highlights in fact, so the reels might not have captured them all:
The food at The Queen’s Club is very, very good these days – it has certainly come on a long way, catering-wise, since the 1990’s:
Richard had not yet met Janie before and neither Janie nor I had previously met Geraldine. It was a great pleasure to spend an evening with those two, eating good food and chatting about all sorts.
Janie and I continued to get pleasure from this event for the rest of the weekend. The doubles semi-finals were on the Sunday and once we had decided to have a quick peep at those on the stream, we were hooked. The first of the semi-finals in particular was a humdinger:
Janie and I also felt quite smug about our modern tennis experience that weekend. Although the weather was shocking, we found a gap in the weather each day to have a decent enough game of “lawners” outdoors.
But the prevailing good feeling from the weekend was that most enjoyable late afternoon and evening on the Friday with Richard & Geraldine Prosser.
