I paraphrase the WhatsApp message I received from Carl Snitcher (Snitch) only 10 days before the match. I suspect I was one of quite a few people who got such a message from him that day.
The upshot was that Snitch was in the backveld of South Africa, doing valuable charitable works no doubt, while the far more crucial matter of arranging the MURTC v MCC real tennis match had slipped his mind.
I spotted an opportunity to get a bit of practice with my tournament doubles partner, Dominic Flint, if by chance Dominic was also available, which he was. Somehow, probably through methods and devices similarly arcane to my recruitment of Our Man Flint, Snitch managed to cobble together a team.
I have also represented the MCC in the home leg of this match a couple of times – a matter which went unreported on Ogblog a few months ago despite the nail-biting nature of the fixture, which (for once) the MCC won by the skin of its teeth.
No doubt the MURTC folk were hell-bent for revenge…
…except it isn’t actually that kind of fixture, as far as I can tell. The MURTC crowd are as convivial and friendly as any competitive sporting fixture can be. The eating, drinking and socialising seems to be a pretty important element.
To that end, step forward Catherine Hudson, who, together with John Harrington, put on a phenomenal spread for our fixture lunch, centred around several massive trays of The Pie Man’s phenomenal pies. A caterer well known to me – I think it was Angela Broad (coincidentally a former real tennis player from many years gone by) who put us in touch with the Pie Man himself, Murray Tollemache, when we first started catering Z/Yen events, 20 to 25 years ago.
The most difficult decision I had to make, soon after we arrived at about 12:15, was whether to eat before or after playing at 14:00. The smell and look of the food had my heart say “eat” , but my head said, “wait”. Head won.
Janie joined us, as she did last year, which helped with the congeniality of the day, not that these two teams need help. But Janie did take lots of video clips, through which I can show the progress of our rubber which was, if I might say so, a fine metaphor for the whole match, MCC-wise.
The little video below, titled “One For The Career Highlights Reel” is, um, one for the career highlights reel. Dominic with the magnificent winner.
https://youtu.be/05Kowd-jaCI
The next video might need some explanation for the uninitiated. The call of “up” tells your partner that you believe the ball will go above the dedans gallery and onto the back penthouse. The call of “yours” means that you want your partner to take the ball. Only very rarely have I had the opportunity to sat “up yours” to my partner descriptively. Of course I would never use those words expletively… not on the tennis court anyway.
https://youtu.be/YtqPHBOg23U
https://youtu.be/HHFOdw3lLSI
It was actually a very good game of tennis for most of the rubber, with the pendulum swinging one way and then the other.
https://youtu.be/F6Pgij8NmOw
https://youtu.be/GLIhpvIlqiU
But soon enough our rubber turned against us. Well played, Peter and Paul.
https://youtu.be/7_fZIJ7-5Fc
Were Dominic and I able to cope with our disappointment and rejoin the increasingly party-like atmosphere? Would we be able to digest our food after all of that excitement and the roller-coaster ride of sporting emotions?
Yes.
It really was a most enjoyable day. The teams get on really well, despite the fierceness of the competition on court, while the professionals (Chris Bray this time, Will Burns on my previous visits) make us visitors feel extremely welcome.
So I suspect that only two questions remain for the casual reader. Firstly, who won the fixture this time? Well, I think I planted enough clues in the text, but in any case, as they say in Las Vegas, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”
The other question, normally delivered in song at sporting fixtures, is “who ate all the pies?” The answer, of course, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”
Once again I found myself selected to represent the MCC against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club; a match scheduled for 28 April. But that was not to be my only Middlesex v MCC experience that week.
Tuesday 24 April – Middlesex v MCC
On the Tuesday, 24 April, there was an historic cricket match between Middlesex CCC Women and MCC Women at Lord’s. As it happens, largely by coincidence, I had arranged to play tennis at Lord’s that afternoon. So I rose early to get my work out of the way, taking the afternoon out to watch a couple of hours of cricket and do some leisure reading before playing tennis.
I commuted to Lord’s by public transport and found myself in a swirl of schoolkids and teachers on the Wellington Road – some arriving at the ground for the match and some leaving (there had been another exhibition match in the morning).
Do not be deceived by the empty stands in the photograph below, which I took from pride of place in the Warner Stand. The Grandstand was ram-packed with youngsters watching the game. As I understand it, 5,000 to 6,000 people attended the day, making it the largest ever crowd for a domestic women’s cricket match.
In truth the quality of the cricket was less than special. It reminded me a bit of Janie’s and my first experience of Women’s test cricket, at Shenley in 2003, in cricket quality terms. So there is room for improvement but also proof positive that improvement can come quickly – by 2009 when Janie and I attended the Women’s T20 World Cup final at Lord’s…
From my vantage point at the front of the Warner Stand, I did need to keep an eye on each ball in case it came sailing my way, but equally was able to do some reading too. I was re-reading chunks of “What To Listen For In Music” by Aaron Copeland, with a view to helping my nascent instrument-playing, not least in the matter of transcription, adaptation and shifting modes/keys.
But I was interrupted quite early in my reading by a young woman with a strong Scouse accent who had never been to a cricket match before and wondered whether I could explain “the rules” to her. She in particular wanted to understand wickets.
Unfortunately Middlesex Women at that time seemed signally incapable of taking any wickets – not even the relatively frequent potential catches that were being offered, to help me demonstrate the ideas.
Nevertheless, my pupil seemed to get the idea of catches and clean bowled wickets quite easily. Stumped and run out seemed a little further from her experience, so we both struggled a bit when I tried to explain those. I then paused momentarily to try to work out how (or even whether) to explain LBW, when the young lady told me she needed to meet a friend, thanked me profusely and took her leave of me. I was a little relieved to be honest…as was she, I suspect, as I spotted her at the end of the innings sitting on her own at the front, a few blocks away from where she had collared me. Perhaps she was now explaining “the rules” to an “imaginary friend”. Nevertheless, she waved at me as if greeting a long-time pal.
It was well cold that day. I watched and read from the comfort of the pavilion for a while, before changing and playing two hours of tennis; an hour of singles which went very well and then an hour of doubles, to help me get my head into the doubles side of things for my impending match. After I played, I tried without success to find out the result of the women’s cricket match – both the MCC and Middlesex websites put up photos straight away but not the result.
Friday 27 April – Warm-Up Practice Doubles Ahead Of Middlesex v MCC
When I realised that, by chance, my Friday singles match was to be against one of my MCC team-mates, David Mitchell-Innes, I mentioned this fact in bant form in response to one of the organising e-mails from Carl Snitcher, the team captain and my doubles partner for Saturday’s match:
I hope you are training hard for our role in this fixture. Mr Mitchell-Innes and I are due to do battle towards the cause on Friday…
…so you’ll either have two perfectly honed team members or a last minute need for two substitutes.
This kicked off a flurry of e-mails, initiated by Nick Hewitt (David’s doubles partner), that resulted, instead, in the four of us having a practice session together.
This sounded like a brilliant idea; an opportunity to have four perfectly honed team members. Except of course, when the competitive instinct kicked in, we soon realised that there was the risk we’d end up with a last minute need for four substitutes.
Carl bowed out a little early (it had been kind of him to stay on to join us at all) so when the practice match reached its inevitable denouement at one-set-all, five-games-all, forty-all…
…and I somehow, single-handedly managed to prevail…
…naturally emotions were running high. I don’t have a film clip of real tennis concluding in such a competitive spirit, but I have found a similar-looking example from women’s ice hockey:
Being Friday morning, fortunately, both Mark Ryan and Chris Swallow were on hand to help all of us to leave the court with our dignity intact and mop up ahead of the senior gentlemen, who were next on court.
In retrospect, I think this style of preparation worked better for Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt than it did for Messrs Harris and Snitcher.
Saturday 28 April – Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) v MCC
So to the big day. Janie had kindly agreed to join us for the afternoon and help us to eat what I predicted to be, based on my previous experience of this fixture,…
…a sumptuous lunch provided by David Sloan. I was right about the lunch.
Janie and I attempted to play modern tennis first thing, but the weather was unexpectedly shocking at 8:40 when we arrived on court and we gave up, drenched, at 9:00.
We got to Hendon while the first rubber was in full sway; a close-run affair which MURTC took by a hair’s breadth. Heartbreaking, it was. Almost enough to put one off one’s food. “ALMOST” I said.
So while the next rubber was in full sway, most of us took advantage of the delectable spread. The highlight was a superb joint of roast beef, but there was also smoked salmon, a fine selection of cheeses, plus bread, potatoes and salad.
We socialised. We ate. We got to meet John and Catherine’s delightful cocker spaniels. We watched Messrs Mitchell-Innes and Hewitt take full advantage of their practice session from the previous day to level the match 1-1.
At that stage of the afternoon, Carl seemed less concerned about the impending battle with MURTC and more concerned about doing battle with his internet service provider, who had simultaneously threatened to cut off his services unless he paid his account, while seemingly making it impossible for Carl to pay. At roughly the same time, David and Will did battle with a computer, a large television set and a TV subscription website, to enable us to see the final chapter of the 2018 World Singles Championship.
Next up for MCC was Sebastian Wood and Chris Stanton, the latter I have, coincidentally, known for over quarter of a century from my time writing for NewsRevue – he was the first professional actor ever to perform one of my lyrics:
No comedy involved in the fierce contest of this tennis match, though. But by the time that third rubber was concluded, MURTC were leading the fixture 2-1 and most of the crowd was watching the telly rather than watching the live tennis.
Naturally Janie (Daisy) took pride of place in the dedans gallery, along with a few others, to watch me and Carl Snitcher do battle with a pair of mighty gladiators from MURTC. Even more naturally (to anyone who has seen Daisy play modern tennis) she was cheering and applauding points won from false shots, dodgy bounces and net chords as vociferously as good shots.
In short, it is probably just as well that most of our MCC team-mates were watching the telly during that final rubber. It was all over rather quickly, MURTC winning the match 3-1, at which point those of us still on court mixed it up and played for fun for a good few minutes longer.
After that, we all decompressed and enjoyed some social minutes while watching the very end of the 2018 World Singles Championships on the TV.
Sadly, I don’t have any film clips of this year’s MURTC v MCC match, nor of the 2018 world championships that people were watching on the TV. I do have a couple of similar clips, but they have got all mixed up and I really cannot tell which is which – I’ll have to leave it to the viewer to judge:
Anyway, the match was a great success, both as a sporting and as a social occasion. With thanks not least to David Sloan for organising the fixture and food, Will/MURTC for hosting and making the match run…and of course to Carl for trying to organise the MCC team – a task that might be described as, “like trying to herd cats”.
Janie and I went on to the Finborough Theatre that evening, where, most unusually for the Finborough, the drama was not so much to our taste.
About a month earlier, Mr Thirlwell and I entered the Lord’s dedans a few minutes before our scheduled gladiatorial hour, quite by chance to encounter Messrs Snitcher and Leigh planning the teams for the MCC v The Dedanists’ Society.
“Would either of you gentlemen possibly be available to represent the club on 10 February?” we were asked.
Both of us replied that we would check our heaving social calendars, but, each of us coincidentally suspected that the afternoon of 10 February might just be a tiny window of opportunity for the club to co-opt our services.
Mr Thirlwell relaxing in the dedans gallery after doing battle – with thanks to Janie for all of the photos and the videos
An hour later, as Mr Thirlwell and I were dragged off the court kicking, biting, punching and yelling at each other…
…as usual…
…yet another draw for the real tennis on-line score book…
…Messrs Snitcher and Leigh looked at each other and exclaimed in unison, “yes indeed, these two will be ideal canon fodder for our friendly match with The Dedanists’ Society.”
So Janie needed only a little persuasion to join us on 10 February for lunch and to watch her boy (me) in action. By then we knew that I was scheduled to partner Mr Snitcher himself, for the first time in a match since my very first attempt at a doubles match some 18 months previously – click here or below for that tale of derring-do:
Janie and I planned, on the morning of 10 February, to play an hour of modern tennis before heading to Lord’s for lunch. But as there was still frost on the cars when we planned to set off to play, we postponed that fixture. All dressed up with no place to go for physical preparation, I resorted instead to psychological methods:
Preparing spiritually for the big match against the Dedanists
Janie and I arrived in good time for lunch; getting to see the end of the second rubber and chat with a few people before the all important business of chowing down.
The grub was good. The centrepiece was a very tasty chilli-con-carne with rice and vegetables, supplemented with some tasty nibbles, a brightly-coloured soup (carrot and tomato I should imagine) and an elegant cheese platter. Washed down with plentiful wine for those who had already done battle and a thimble-full of wine for a combatant-to-be, like me.
In truth, this particular fixture must be one of the friendliest matches in the whole of the global real tennis calendar. Most MCC members who play in the fixture are also members of The Dedanists’ Society. Most of the players on the day were members of both clubs; so much so that, at times, during play, we were struggling to work out which team was which.
Mark (the nominative deterministic gentleman who marks the matches), Mr Snitcher and yours-truly – let the battle commence
Soon enough it was our chance to play. The last rubber of the match – surely the highlight of the fixture. So much so that some of the people who had done battle earlier in the day simply couldn’t take the tension and left Lord’s before the game. Still, a good dozen or so people remained, hardly any of whom were having an afternoon snooze.
Mr Snitcher and I had spent many seconds preparing our tactics for the match. We agreed that I would do most of the running, so I should not expect to hear the call “yours”, I should only expect to hear the shout “mine”, at which point I should leave the ball.
Here’s an example:
Somehow it seemed to work out…
…as did my serve on the day; most but not all of the time:
…even my volley worked a bit better than usual…
…as one kind gentleman pointed out to Janie, I was in the zone…
…which is a polite way of saying that I was not really keeping track of the score, much as some people struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Tony and Mr Devlin watched with rapt attention – it was that sort of match
Even Tony seemed full of glee at the end of the match. He told me and Mr Snitcher that we had excelled ourselves on court. He also said that we should be delighted with the progress we are making…
…at least I think that’s what Tony said. To be honest I wasn’t listening; apparently none of us ever do.
Joking apart, all the participants had spent a thoroughly enjoyable day at Lord’s and raised a few bob for The Dedanists’ Society in the process.
Janie (Daisy) and I normally play (modern) tennis every Saturday and Sunday morning, so my response to requests to fill in for late cancellations on the real tennis court at the weekends normally contains the answer “no”.
The Galloping Bard And The Mighty Snitch Take On the Boomerang Boys
But I had noticed that the weather was set utterly foul for Sunday, so when Chris Swallow asked me on Friday if I could possibly do a couple of hours doubles to help the MCC Team prepare for the Boomerang Cup in Melbourne – click here to learn about that premier international sporting event, I thought Janie probably would sooner watch me play “realers” in a good cause than watch the rain wash out any hope of us playing “lawners”. I asked; Janie said yes.
Actually the weather forecast was wrong. It didn’t rain.
It snowed. Noddyland looked resplendent as we set off for Lord’s.
Snow Time In Noddyland
We allowed plenty of time to get to Lord’s in the snow, but actually the roads were empty yet perfectly passable so we got there in a record 20 minutes from Noddyland.
The wise doctor, Doctor Wyse, who was to be the third of the Boomerang Cup team in practice on the day, was not so lucky with the weather and phoned in snowed in. Iain Harvey and Oliver Wise were the two Boomerang Team stalwarts there for some match practice ahead of the antipodean batttle.
Carl Snitcher very kindly stayed on for a valiant extra 70-80 minutes after his hour of singles, to help make up the four.
Initially I partnered Iain against Oliver and Carl. Iain took pains to point out at one stage that he was bringing an extra “I” to our partnership…while I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t been using both of my eyes to watch the ball enough.
After one Boomerang set in the above permutation, Oliver and Iain felt that they should get used to partnering each other, so I then partnered The Mighty Snitch for a while (see above photo).
Once Carl had to leave, Chris Swallow took over as my partner for just under an hour, immediately bringing better performance out of me through some form of coachy-osmosis or something.
The Boomerang Cup has slightly different rules. Boomerang sets are “first to eight” (best of 15 games) rather than the regular “first to six” real tennis sets. Games are decided on “one point” at 40-40, even when there is no handicap to play. Also, if the receivers are three or more games behind, they can do a switch during the set (just the once) to try catch up by each facing the alternative opposing server. (In regular rules, the receiving pair decides who will receive against whom at the start of each set).
Janie (Daisy) enjoyed Rose Harvey’s company while watching and while taking some photos and vids. Three short clips below – the first is me serving and playing well:
…the second is what happens when that serve, the demi-piquet, goes slightly awry against a good player…
…the third shows me playing quite well again – this time from the grille side of the hazard end (I’m not making these names up as I go along, honest):
Believe it or not, the whole darned thing is streamed these days, albeit silently, so you can watch the lot if you wish, by clicking the embedded link below. We start at 2:04:45 and only play for a couple of hours – it is riveting viewing:
It is terrific experience for me to play doubles with better players like this; somehow I manage to lift my performance (at least a bit) when I play in these circumstances, which must be good for my game. In any case, it was a great fun morning of tennis.
I was delighted to be selected to represent the MCC again against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club. This was to be my third go in that fixture – click here to read about the previous go.
So I thought it was to be comedy doubles. Ideally with me writing the script and Chris doing all the work.
John Random, who directed that 1992 show, on learning that Chris and I had been reunited through this strange game, had expressed a desire to see real tennis. So I had the idea to invite John to watch Chris and me play in this match.
Initially John said yes to that idea, but the weekend before the match, he was selected for a Compare The Meerkat advert and had to pull out of the Lord’s tennis spectating role. It transpires that John has previous in the matter of phoney slavic accents and extremely dodgy fur:
Win a one-way ticket to the Gulag if you even think about markets-dot-com
In the end John’s inability to show up at Lord’s was probably just as well. For a start, that Trotsky beard would not have gone down well at The Grace Gate. Further, in any case, Chris Stanton was also a no show on the day – surely not another one summoned to perform with an anthropomorphic gang from the mongoose family?
So, captain my captain Josh Farrall partnered me in the first match. Sadly there are no photos from this match, but there is a stock photo of me playing in a previous match – that isn’t Josh watching me hit the ball all wrong.
A perfect shot of an ever so slightly imperfect shot – photo by Sidney Yankson
Exhausted by our endeavours, I nevertheless volunteered to relieve our captain from multiple duties by taking his slot in the later match he was scheduled to play.
This gave me the chance to partner Nick Evans, who is even more of a novice than me and against whom I was scheduled to play singles the next day, against a delightful Middlesex couple (including the MURTC team captain) who are also more novice than me, although not by much.
It was a superb success as a social evening, with the traditional Lord’s curry going down a treat, washed down with some very jolly wines.
“What was the score?”, I hear the more competitive readers cry. Come on now, I’ve told you before, what happens on the MCC tennis court stays on the MCC tennis court.
I’ll just provide one picture-based clue:
Pears-Pairs-Bagels
Real tennis was the winner, along with conviviality.
Them and Us, Thanks To Sidney Yankson For The Pictures
Not content with the idea of attending one heck of a big match at Lord’s on Sunday, I found myself selected to represent the MCC at real tennis there on the preceding Friday evening,
I arrived early for my rubber, keen to see a bit of the earlier action. In fact I arrived at the same time as our non-playing captain, Brian. As soon as we arrived, Sidney exclaimed, “oh great, we’re all here; let’s have a team photo right now”. Hence my appearance on court sporting weekend casuals rather than whites.
In fact we weren’t all here; Tony Friend (my team mate from battles gone by) was between his singles and double rubber, while neither his partner, Oliver, nor my partner to be, “Dangerous Deane”, nor indeed our opponents to be had arrived yet.
Early and late arrivals at the MCC real tennis ball
Sidney was captaining the Honourable Artillery Company team and had organised the whole fixture. He (mercifully) had some flexibility in deciding who should play whom, as several of the players are eligible to play for either or both organisations, as is often the case with real tennis matches and there had been a few late changes to the dramatis personae, as is equally often the case.
“We’ve been around since 15:37″, said Sidney, which didn’t seem unreasonable to me for a match that was scheduled to start at 4:00 pm…”the HAC is probably the oldest active real tennis team in the world.”
Ah, he meant, 1537. Back in Henry VIII’s time. Some of us suggested that one or two of our more senior but still active MCC players might precede the date of HAC’s foundation.
When it was my turn to play, Sidney risked life and limb to take photos of our warm up, shouting, “please don’t hit me” as he scurried around the court in search of the perfect shot of a perfect shot:
A perfect shot of a slightly imperfect shot, bravely snapped by Sidney Yankson
Once the game was in progress, Sidney took more pictures from the relative safety of the dedans:
I was strategically stationed to guard the side galleries, while “Dangerous Deane” soaked up most of the pressure; Deane had one opponent so well covered you cannot even see him in this picture, which was safely snapped by Sidney Yankson
“So what was the result of the match?”, I hear readers cry.
MCC won the fixture 4-1.
“May we have more specific details about what happened in the match, such as the individual scores of the rubbers therein and tales of derring-do that led to those scores?”, the readers’ cries continue.
Now, now; what happens on the MCC tennis court stays on the MCC tennis court.
Suffice it to say that, as usual, the match was highly convivial, enabling me to meet several more realists and get to know some others a bit better than before.
A few dedicated souls retired to a local hostelry (The Lord’s Tavern) for dinner and libations after the match, but I retreated to Noddyland, where preparations for Sunday’s other big match at Lord’s were in full sway. That big fillet of dry-aged beef was not going to carve and partially eat itself, now was it?
I was a slightly reluctant conscript to represent the MCC against Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) today.
Much as I love playing real tennis, my weekend routine is to play modern tennis with Daisy in the morning and we had theatre tickets booked for the evening.
…and it was after all just down the road in Hendon on a long weekend…so I told the skipper that I would play only if needed.
I got the “yes, you are needed” message a couple of weeks before the match.
Still, I was selected to play the last (doubles) rubber, mid afternoon, so I thought there was no need to dispense with the traditional Boston Manor modern tennis fixture with Janie first thing.
Lawners at Boston Manor – court one of three
I played a cracking good game of lawners, though I say so myself. Janie later claimed that she let me win by a large margin to help build my confidence for the big match. I don’t think so.
Went home, showered, switched from pyjamas to whites and off to Middlesex University for lunch and the match. By the time I got there the MCC were one rubber down and while I was eating lunch we went 2-0 down with two rubbers to go.
Then we watched a very exciting game of doubles, which looked as though it would go MURTC’s way but ended up going MCC’s way.
“No pressure, but it’s all down to you two”, said one of my team mates, helpfully, as my partner and I went on court for the deciding rubber. Court two of three.
We’d never played with each other before and I have only played a handful of doubles at real tennis, so asked my partner to do the calling. He seemed reluctant to do that at first, but when I called a couple of times, reminding him that I really wasn’t sure whether to go for the ball on not, he said he’d call himself, which he started doing and I started to work out quite quickly what he wanted to play or leave.
The handicapping system did us some favours, as my limited doubles experience means that my doubles handicap lags behind that of my singles. On the other hand, the MURTC court is very different from that at Lord’s – much bouncier, it reminded me a bit of the one I tried in Manchester last autumn – click here, adding to the novelty of the situation. Yet, that extra bounce sometimes gives the player just a smidgen of extra time to adjust and hit a better shot – at my stage of real tennis, I rather like the extra bounce.
Anyway, the upshot of all that, I’m delighted to report, is that we won our rubber and thus the match was drawn. My partner and I were metaphorically carried aloft with garlands in our hair, before everyone said fond goodbyes and went their separate ways.
These real tennis matches are very enjoyable, friendly affairs. A good way of getting to know some of the MCC players better. Also a good way to meet some really interesting and pleasant people from other clubs, in this case MURTC.
No photos from our match but here is a little promo video from MURTC that they made only a few weeks ago, which gives a pretty good idea about the place, not least its friendly and welcoming atmosphere. You can even see a couple of the people I met in the still below – the professional and the male student (left of picture).
With thanks to Toni Friend for the picture, taken during the famous match between MCC and the visiting Australians in September 2016
I took some real tennis lessons in January 2016 and started playing tentatively in March, perhaps in earnest since April when I started playing twice a week.
This end of year piece builds on that July piece and reflects on my whole first calendar year playing this intriguing game, including some astonishing statistics.
August to December 2016 News Update And Ogblog Links
Strangely, just a week after writing my July 2016 reflective piece, I was selected to play my first competitive match for the MCC, against a party of visiting Australians in September.
I had in any case decided to have a few more lessons in August, once I had played about 50 competitive hours on court.
I also spent some time in Manchester in September, getting a chance to play a couple of times and have a lesson at the Manchester Real Tennis Club in Salford, which I enjoyed enormously.
Here are some links to pieces I wrote August through October – please note that the pieces might not be exclusively about real tennis:
You might observe that I was having a great time playing real tennis during those months, but there was one small problem. Between early July and late October my handicap signally failed to come down; it simply hovered around the rather inauspicious mark of 67.3 – better than my early mark in the mid-seventies, but certainly not the steady improvement towards 60 and beyond that I had been hoping for.
Apparently, this tendency to plateau at times is quite normal, although I think my first plateau was a little lowly and lengthy for someone of my age and stage.
Anyway, I got a good win the afternoon after the House of Lords (27 October – see the last link in the above list of links) and since then the progress has been relentless for a couple of months, ending the year at a more impressive 64.1 – still a long way to go but definitely back on the improvement curve.
Real tennis is quite a good game for a stats geek – not least because the real tennis on-line system is full of stats and tools through which you can measure yourself and weigh up your opponents. Not that I am even faintly at the stage (if indeed I ever shall be) that such tools would do much for me personally.
Digging deeper into the system, I can see how I have got on against each opponent and how those opponents have got on against other opponents – hours of fun to be had if/when I can be bothered.
However, one set of general stats has caught my eye, as this real tennis on-line system, including the handicapping, is used by every real tennis club in the world. I can see my handicap against pools of other players on various measures.
For example, if I look at my handicap compared with the current handicap of everyone who has ever had their handicap recorded on the system (about 15 years worth of data), I am ranked around 6,300 out of the 10,300 or so people who have ever been ranked. That puts me somewhere around the 62nd percentile. Not bad for a beginner.
To be more accurate for playing purposes, it is probably better to restrict my search to active players – i.e. everyone who has played in the last year. On that basis, I am around the 3,000 mark out of 4,100 or so people who have played in 2016. That is around the 74th percentile or “bottom of the third quartile” mark. Still not too bad for a beginner.
But returning to the larger data set, I am intrigued by this 6,300 figure. Because that really is close to the sum total of people on the planet who could possibly stand a chance of beating me at this game. The game is so unlike other racket sports, it would be virtually impossible for anyone, even an elite sportsperson, to simply pick up a real tennis racket and beat someone who knows how to play, without having a lesson or two and a few goes first.
Think about that statistic for just a moment. If an alien being from another planet were to come to planet earth and select a human being at random to play me at real tennis, there is only a one in a million chance that the other person would win.
I admit that this one-in-a-million stat is not a very useful statistic in practice, of course, but it is a rather awe-inspiring one in theory.
Just look at my technique again in the light of my impressive stats
Me and “Snitch” on court, as seen from the dedans gallery. Thanks to Janie for this picture.
Janie and I spent a most enjoyable day at Lord’s, where I played my first representative match for the MCC against visiting Australians, The Wanderers.
I explained the circumstances in which I learnt of my selection in my piece on my journey to the Edgbaston test match – here. Janie was up for coming along to support and it was a happy coincidence that Janie’s friend, Toni, was also available to come and cheer her hubby. Toni also took some excellent pictures,including the two shown below.
Doesn’t look too bad for a novice but plenty to work on still. Thanks to Toni for the picture.
The match mostly comprised doubles fixtures; mine being third up, around lunchtime. The first two matches were very good viewing. I’m sure ours must have been too, as there was quite a bit of crowd noise and I don’t mean just munching.
Janie (Daisy) was clearly rapt with attention. Who wouldn’t be in such circumstances? Thanks again to Toni for this picture.
Lord’s puts on a super spread for this type of event and there was plenty of grub left for our quartet to tuck into once we had finished playing and showered, despite the late hour.
The MCC won the match by three rubbers to one. Everyone seemed to be having a really good time. Most of the visiting Australians were travelling and/or playing en famille, which added to the convivial nature of the fixture and made Janie and Toni feel at home.
After the competition was over, a few of us knocked around for a while; one of the Australian players, his son, me and Janie, getting her first taste of real tennis. She quite liked it and looked rather good at it for a total rookie, but I don’t think she’ll be taking up the game.
I don’t suppose the MCC very often has a need for a player of my humble handicap for representative matches, so I’ll have to keep getting better and bring that handicap down if I am to play some more of these. It was a really memorable and enjoyable day.
I’m using some of my own time to help Middlesex CCC with its strategic planning. Richard Goatley, the new Chief Executive thought that AGM day would be a good opportunity to see lots of people, so I blocked out the whole day for Lord’s, starting there at 9:30, after clearing my e-mails and going to the gym.
I could describe the detailed conversations that morning with the MCC and ECB, but they are probably covered by the “I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you” protocol. (Unless you, dear reader, are Richard Goatley himself, in which case you wouldn’t need to read it here because you already have notes.)
After a pleasant lunch in The Lord’s Tavern, which Richard spent mostly signing forms for Dawid Malan, we met with Martin Hadland. Martin is doing a closely related piece of work around membership satisfaction and finding ways to boost membership. We went through the results of a members survey and discussed his impending focus groups with members. It all looks very well done so far and promises interesting ideas for improving the membership propositions.
I then had a pesky 90 minutes or so interval before the AGM. I had been expecting that interval, so had brought some reading matter with me. I went to the real tennis dedans viewing gallery. I shall eventually write up my new experience of learning to play real tennis. Suffice it to say here that I thought that I’d both get some reading done and also get my head into the game a little more.
I watched some very good players locked into a tight match. Then, just before 17:00, in walks a familiar face; Chris Stanton. He was in John Random’s Spring 1992 NewsRevue cast and was the lead performer on the first songs of mine that were ever performed there, two of which I have today blogged in honour of the chance encounter:
Chris and I had a very pleasant but brief chat, as his opponent turned up shortly after. I watched Chris play for a while, then left the viewing gallery to whizz through my e-mails before going to the meeting. Strangely, John Random had e-mailed one of his “Where Are They Now” messages to his NewsRevue alumni circle earlier in the day (Sarah Moyle spotted on the TV), so I e-mailed back to let everyone know that I had just seen Chris Stanton face-to-face!
I subsequently received the following missive from Random:
What a great idea. Real tennis is presumably the one where you don’t use the same prescriptions as Maria Sharapova.
My reply:
Absolutely not the same meds as Maria – she took Meldonium. The performance enhancing drug of choice for real tennis is Sanatogen.
As a novice, I am sometimes asked to play with some of the more senior members – one pair I was up against when learning doubles had a combined age of around 178 and they are determined to still be playing next year as the world’s first ever nonagenarian tennis pair. Their secret simply has to be Sanatogen.
Next stop, the AGM. The formal part is covered by the aforementioned “I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you” protocol. Believe me, the substance of a Middlesex AGM is not worth dying for, nor even worth the effort to attend were it not for the subsequent elements to the evening.
Suffice it to say that new Chair, Mike O’Farrell, while not as funny as outgoing Chair, Ian Lovett, ran a tight ship for the AGM, getting through the meeting with all business thoroughly covered and in record time. One type of gem replacing another type of gem in the chair; that’s my view.
The AGM is always followed by a very interesting pre-season forum; this year Angus Fraser, Dawid Malan and Richard Scott joined Richard Goatley on the panel for a very interesting discussion about cricket. Apparently Middlesex is a cricket club. I wish I’d realised that when I started work on the Middlesex strategy. Oh well.
Then a very enjoyable party for those members willing to stump up an ayrton for wine, cheese and a convivial opportunity to catch up with friends, grandees and friendly grandees. After the party, the conviviality was set to continue in the Tavern. Tired, I attempted to make my apologies, keen not to become both tired AND emotional. I explained that the metaphorical umpire’s finger had been raised, so I had no option but to go. It is very hard for cricket lovers to object to you going, when you put it like that.
A fruitful day, a lovely chance encounter and a most enjoyable evening.
