Tag: real tennis

A Rather Strange Mix of a Day, 3 June 2016

Unusually, I spent Thursday night at the house, as the kitchen ceiling at the flat was being done over the Thursday/Friday.

I spent a couple of hours first thing, working on my latest “why Brexit would be an act of collective commercial and geopolitical seppuku” article.

Then I set off by tube for a mixed day of peripatetic work and leisure. First stop; Lord’s for a game of real tennis. I thought I played well again today; perhaps starting to get my head round some of the tactics needed to win big points and close out games.

I didn’t hang around too long at Lord’s, as I wanted to visit Lock and Co. before meeting Chris Harrison for lunch. My beaten up old Chepstow trilby really had become an embarrassment and yet was still a favourite hat; I probably wanted a direct replacement. I tried a few different ones, but basically concluded that in the Chepstow “I look like me” so went for it.

About 150 yards down the road, as I was walking past St James’s Palace, I walked past two young American women, one of whom said to me (without pausing for breath in the middle of her conversational sentence with her friend), “I really like your hat”, which I felt endorsed my buying decision.

Another 150 yards towards Chris’s offices, I am crossing The Mall at the pelican crossing there and I see a cyclist, who has stopped for me at the lights, who looked the spitting image of Boris Johnson. On closer inspection, I realised that it WAS Boris. “You’ve made a really bad call to go for Brexit, Boris”, I said, “a shocking and dangerous decision. Think about the geopolitics of it. Think about the world”.

“No I haven’t, no it isn’t” mumbled Boris as we parted company. I wonder whether I made him think at all? I wonder whether he liked my hat?

Postscript: November 2018

I realise, in retrospect, that my intervention with Boris might be considered to be a microaggression, or even a macro-aggression, frankly.

Imagine the scene; a be-suited gentleman in a sharp Paul Smith suit and a brand new Chepstow from Lock & Co, carrying a rather peculiar looking bag, which happens to contain nothing more than a real tennis racket, waving the bag in anger at a stationery Boris on a bike:

Here are some of the items for you to peruse

That real tennis bag, a kind “hand-me-down” gift from Angela Broad, has some antiquity to it and is a rarely seen thing these days. Indeed, when I was playing as a refugee at The Queen’s Club in September 2018…

Tennis At Queen’s Followed By Dinner With Simon Jacobs At Brasserie Blanc, 12 September 2018

…the young professionals there were convinced that my real tennis bag contained a sawn-off shotgun rather than a tennis racket…

…which is a bit odd at one of a handful of places in the world where there is more than one real tennis court.

Coincidentally, one of those young professionals, Jack Clifton, transferred to Lord’s when it reopened in October and spotted straight away that one of the real tennis exhibits in the reception is a very similar bag; that which belonged to the late, great actor, Sir Ralph Richardson:

The inscription in part reads, “Although not a very gifted player, Sir Ralph was a real tennis devotee…” Sounds like my kind of guy.

Anyway, point is, I did not intend my intervention with Boris Johnson to be quite as aggressive as it might have seemed. Further, I apologise unequivocally for my unintended aggression towards Boris. I should, to use language that lawyers and Boris understand, have aligned my mens rea with my actus reus.

Back To the Original 2016 Piece

A delightful lunch with Chris, at which I handed over his ticket for Friday at the test. A small family-run Italian place near his offices; I had a very tasty seafood pasta. Good strong coffee afterwards too. I had texted Janie to let her know that I had accosted Boris in the street, so she phoned to make sure that I wasn’t joking and/or hadn’t had a psychotic episode. Chris and I wondered why Boris was cycling away from the Commons at lunchtime and where he might have been going.

After lunch, a tube ride to Hammersmith and time to do a spot more on the Brexit paper before my one client meeting of the day, which went very well. Then a simple tube ride back to North Ealing, beating Janie back to the house by a good few minutes.

After clearing my e-mails, it was time for a little ukulele practice with Benjy the Baritone Ukulele, who thus photo-bombed the above picture of me sporting my new hat.

Janie and I then enjoyed an unusually early Persian food supper from Boof, a very good local Persian place.

A strange but pleasant day.

A Couple of Days spent mostly at Lord’s, Middlesex v Somerset, 23 & 24 May 2016

Monday

I played real tennis at the convenient time of 10:00 – convenient that is for seeing a fair chunk of county cricket afterwards. I played a good game this morning by my own sporadic standards. By the time I had showered, changed and chatted best part of half the morning session had passed, but I found a nice sunny spot in the pavilion and hunkered down with my book, A Confederacy of Dunces, which I was determined to finish today, along with some more business-oriented reading.

I had taken with me the simplest lunch of nuts and fruit. A resuscitating coffee in the pavilion afterwards and then I went in search of more sun by relocating to the front of the Mound Stand. Fine spring weather it was.

Trego and Gregory were trying to ruin Middlesex’s day, but once Trego fell the wickets tumbled. Then Robson and Gubbins got to work in fine style.

Meanwhile I was making similarly light work of A Confederacy of Dunces; I shall write up that book in its capacity as cricket reading for King Cricket.

Postscript: my “review” was published on King Cricket on 13 March 2017 – click here.

If anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to here.

Once that was done, I read the Economist and then, as it started to get a little colder, decided to bail out while I was still enjoying myself – after all, I’d be back tomorrow for some more and wanted to clear some work from home.

Tuesday

A couple of meetings first thing towards the Middlesex strategy, then a few minutes before lunch to watch the cricket. I joined Brian and Judy for the first time this season, hoping to witness the completion of a couple of tons and a double century stand between Robson and Gubbins, but Robson fell on 99 with the team score on 198. But Gubbins did go on to complete his maiden county championship ton.

Again some reviving coffee at lunchtime, while watching Andy Murray snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Radek Stepanek in the first round of Roland Garros. Then I wandered over to the Upper Compton stand, in the hope of finding James Sharp of Googlies and Chinamen fame. So much for one man and a dog at county matches – there must have been a couple of hundred people up there. I asked a few people, who I recognised as Middlesex regulars, if they knew James, but they didn’t, so I e-mailed James with my location. But it transpires that James travels incognito, or at least without an e-mail device. He says he also looked out for me, but it wasn’t to be.

One of the more senior regulars up there suggested to me that Middlesex were batting so slowly that they might lose the match. I said I thought they were getting close to the position when only Middlesex could win, although the draw remained the most likely outcome.

Here’s the match scorecard, btw.

Then as 15:00 approached, I wandered back round towards the main gate, as I was expecting cousins Ted and Sue as guests. I ran into Steve Tasker along the way and we had a good chat. Then I saw Harry and Blossom Latchman, and spoke with them briefly, until I spotted Ted and Sue at the Grace Gate. The stewards did their wonderful bit of making guests feel like honoured visitors. I showed them around the lower pavilion and we watched the last few overs before tea from there.

Then I showed them the upper pavilion and Bowlers Bar, where we had a drink and watched for a while, until Ted casually mentioned that he’d like to see the museum. I thought we’d missed the closing time, but the stewards kindly let us follow the last tour in so Ted and Sue could at least see the Ashes. Then I showed them the real tennis court, which they enjoyed for a while, then round to the Presidents Box for the last few overs before stumps.

An early dinner at The Bridge House (home of the Canal Cafe Theatre) and then a walk back to their Paddington hotel, followed by a short hike back to the flat for me.

Splendid, it all was.

Bread Ahead Half Day Traditional French Baking Course, Borough Market, 20 May 2016

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“What a monumental fougasse, Ged,”…I think that’s what she said

It doesn’t seem like nearly a whole year since DJ, very generously, gave Daisy this birthday present. A couple of half day baking course certificates for the Bread Ahead Bakery School.

Bread Certificate

By the time we got around to thinking about booking something, then realising that the conjunction of the course that we fancy with the dates that we can do and the availability of places on a course that we fancy on a date that we could do…

…you get the picture. So there we were on a sunny Friday in late May, just a few weeks ahead of Daisy’s next birthday, heading for an afternoon of baking in Borough Market.

I had in fact taken the whole day off work, playing a couple of hours of real tennis in the morning. I should have learnt my lesson a few weeks earlier about playing two consecutive hours of that game; that’s a bit more than my body fancies these days and once again the physical fatigue set in a few hours later.

Still, we were in good time getting to Borough, but I forgot to take into account Daisy’s excitement at seeing that sort of foodie market. “We’ll be late for school – we can come back and look at the market after class,” I said. That was a wise suggestion for several reasons, not least because later we would be armed with loads of bread in search of yummy stuff to eat with bread tonight.

Our teacher for the day was none other than Aiden Chapman, a self-confessed dough anarchist and bread revolutionary. This man has a passion for artisanal bread-making and a visceral hatred of the sliced white factory loaf. A little reminiscent of the real ale campaign back in the day; indeed he even uses the term “real bread”.

From what we could gather, Aiden Chapman is one of the architects of the Bread Ahead baking courses but he only occasionally delivers them, although he is the very teacher depicted on the promotional picture we were given with our certificates last year:

Bread Ahead Promo.

We are in a class of 12 to learn traditional French baking. We are to make a campagne loaf, a baguette and fougasse. We start with the campagne loaf, which takes the longest to bake. Mercifully, we are provided with a small chunk of (one day old) mother dough to use as part of our loaves, otherwise it would have needed to be a two day course.

Soon enough we have measured and added the flour, salt, water and yeast to make up the complete dough. Then we kneed the dough. All by hand, of course. At this juncture, my fatigue really kicked in, although I didn’t realise it at first. But while all the others, including Daisy, seemed to be getting exactly the texture and consistency Aiden described, I just seemed to be pushing my messy lump of stuff around the table and getting my hands covered in bread-making ingredients.

“Use the heel of your hand and really stretch that gluten,” said Aiden…

…”try standing up and doing it”…

…”like this,” he said, taking over my bundle of disengaged ingredients and with a few swift movements of his hands bringing it together as something a lot closer to everyone else’s lump of dough.

After I spent a couple more minutes emulating the teacher’s firm movements, while mumbling under my breath to Daisy that I didn’t suppose anyone else in the class had exerted themselves to the tune of two hours on the real tennis court that morning, my lump of dough looked pretty much like everyone else’s, although my hands still looked the most anarchic of the lot. Perhaps I was taking the teacher’s ideas about dough anarchy to new hands-on levels.

Next up, baguette dough for both the baguette and the fougasse. The base or “poolish” for this dough is a much easier consistency than the mother dough for the campagne loaf. Also, I suspect that the learning from the first experience helped greatly with the second. This time, I felt the consistency of my dough change in keeping with Aiden’s timings and the look of my fellow pupils’ dough. “I’m proud of you, Ged,” was one encouraging remark from teacher Aiden. “You are a complete master baker”…at least I think that’s what he said.

Anyway, the second dough was for both the baguette and the fougasse – it had never occurred to me before that these two very different breads could come from the same dough – small differences in how the dough is rested, shaped and treated before baking making all that difference to the final result. So we rested, shaped and baked our baguettes and fougasses after rescuing our campagne loaves from the ovens.

At the end of it all, we had all made three mighty artisanal breads to take a way with us and got to try Aiden’s example of each with some strong-tasting country butter and pesto.

Daisy and I then whisked around Borough Market buying some cheese, charcuterie and fruit before heading off to the pictures with all our foodie possessions.

It was a great fun afternoon.

A Miscellaneous, Mostly Middlesex, Day At Lord’s, 7 April 2016

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!

Doubly ironic happenings, as real tennis is such a weird game, the rules could easily have emanated from a John Random sketch describing a fictitious game of John’s imagining. Richard Goatley doesn’t even believe that the game exists, despite the proximity of the Lord’s real tennis court to Richard’s office – like, next door!

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.

 

An Afternoon At Lord’s, Followed By The Seaxe Club AGM and Panel, 30 March 2016

Janie and I have booked a series of wine tastings this spring, the first of which was due to be this evening, so I was disappointed when the Seaxe Club papers came through with 30 March as the AGM/panel date; I always look forward to this event.

Then a fortunate change to the schedule for the wine tastings; the 30 March one has had to be postponed. Equally fortunate was the opportunity to play real tennis that afternoon; originally a one hour gig which in fact turned into a double-header. I shall write more about my experience learning to play real tennis in the fullness of time.

On this occasion, the big thing I learnt about real (or indeed probably any form of) tennis was that two hours on the trot is an exertion too far for me nowadays. It didn’t help falling over on that hard slate floor half-an-hour into the session in a most inglorious fashion – while clearing balls from the net gully into the ball basket. Both knees and my left shoulder are still bruised 10 days later. But in any case, I’m no longer the lad who could play five-setters of modern tennis against the Great Yorkshire Pudding (for example) for hours on end with seemingly no adverse effects.

When I started my two-hour court session, England looked to be on the wrong-end of the ICC World Twenty20 semi-final, with the Kiwis only one down, with 60 or 70 on the board in about 8 overs. But when I emerged after two hours, England looked to be cruising on 100/1 or so off 10 with only 154 to chase. I resolved to change slowly and follow the end of the match on the wonderfully well-positioned TV in the changing room.

While following the end of England’s successful semi-final, I chatted briefly with a visiting squash player from the West Midlands and latterly with Paul Cattermull, a friend and colleague from many years gone by. I had no idea that Paul was a real tennis aficionado or even an MCC member until he entered that changing room. Paul and I had time both to catch up and for him to give me some useful tips about the game.

I also had time to watch Paul play real tennis for about 15 minutes before I needed to hobble round to the President’s Box for the Seaxe Club AGM.

The sun shone on that early evening meeting, making the field of play look an absolute picture and making that President’s Box the ideal setting for appetite-whetting for the new season.

Of course, the AGM bit of the evening is not the main draw for me; indeed I am slightly allergic to those sorts of meetings. There are two reasons why I really look forward to the Seaxe Club AGM evening.

Firstly, it is an early opportunity to see some of the lovely people who work tirelessly for Middlesex cricket in some of the less glamorous roles. Seaxe Club folk are a really nice bunch of people.

Secondly, the Seaxe Club always arranges a really interesting cricket panel for the second half of the evening. This second half should really be described as a symposium, as wine is available between the two sessions (and therefore during the panel) to help lubricate the discussions. I think of this Seaxe Club annual event as one of the best kept secrets in Middlesex, despite the fact that it is always well publicised. I have no idea why it isn’t better attended as it is always so interesting and enjoyable.

On this occasion, there was a slightly depleted panel, as the two younger players scheduled to attend with Angus Fraser were both a bit poorly that day.  Gus had press-ganged Dawid Malan into attending in their place, which was a coup. I chatted with Dawid during the “drinks interval” before the panel. He had no idea that he was about to sit on a panel – he thought he had just been asked along to show his face and have a drink with us. I warned him that the Seaxe Club audience was the toughest gig in Middlesex and that he might get some really challenging questions. But just looking around the room, he knew I was kidding him.

The panel discussion, as always, was interesting. It is usually oriented towards the younger players, as one of the Seaxe Club’s key roles is to help develop the next generation of players. This year the discussion was less youth oriented but still it was interesting to hear Gus and Dawid’s take on the preparatory work the squad has done for the new season and some more general thoughts about county cricket.

Given my exertions earlier in the afternoon, my gammy knees and my bags of kit, I decided for once to tube-it home rather than my usual method, to walk-it.

 

 

England v Australia Day 3 at Lord’s, King Cricket Report, 18 July 2015

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Saturday of the Lord’s Ashes test in 2015.

My King Cricket match report linked here, describing our day, was published on King Cricket nine months after the event. That fact is in no way a criticism of King Cricket. My “deal” with him is that I write these quirky pieces when and if I darn well feel like it; he publishes them when and if he darn well feels like it.

This was the first of mine published on King Cricket for some time, as I am reliably informed that some big piece of cricket news has reliably turned up in the past few months whenever King Cricket has been about to reach for my pile of unpublished articles. As it turned out, a few minutes after King Cricket published this piece on 18 April 2016, a big story indeed broke. Rob Key (one of King Cricket’s favourite players) retired. Having just published mine, that at least enabled King Cricket (aka Alex Bowden) to concentrate on writing a wonderful tribute to Rob Key, published on Cricinfo – click link here.

But back to my report on Day 3 of the Ashes test at Lord’s – click here if you didn’t click to see the report above.  This piece is, in a way, the third part of a trilogy.  It builds on a couple of earlier pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

  •  the one linked here – Anyone For Real Tennis describes the Sunday of the New Zealand Test (24 May 2015) is the direct prequel to the Day 3 Ashes report;
  • England v Sri Lanka Day 3 (14 June 2014) – linked here describes a similar encounter with Mr Johnny Friendly the previous year. I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece and King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun. Thus this piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy.

The irony that I myself have now enthusiastically taken up real tennis in the months between writing this piece and it being published is not wasted on me.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here.  But if you are an England supporter you probably don’t want to look.

 

 

Anyone For Real Tennis?, England v New Zealand Lord’s Test Day 4, King Cricket Match Report, 24 May 2015

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Sunday of the Lord’s test against New Zealand in 2015.

My King Cricket match report linked here and below, describing our day, was published on King Cricket in October 2015.

Anyone For Real Tennis? – England v New Zealand match report

I-Cant-Get-My-Head-Round-These-Rules

Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket site, the above piece has been scraped to here. 

This piece is, in a way, the second part of a trilogy.  It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto is not wasted on me.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here. We were there the day Stokes scored a scintillating, fastest ever test hundred at Lord’s. Stokes had only just started at tea, when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

England v Sri Lanka Day 3 Lord’s Test Match, King Cricket Match Report, 14 June 2014

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Saturday of the Lord’s test against Sri Lanka in 2014.

My King Cricket match report linked here, describing our day, was published on King Cricket in October 2014.

This piece is, in a way, the first part of a trilogy.  It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

This piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy because I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece. King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly again.

The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto is not wasted on me.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here.

It was not the most exciting day’s cricket we’ve ever seen. Daisy said the match was destined for a draw and of course she was right. Except that a nail-biter of a nine-down squeaky-bum draw is not the sort of draw Daisy probably had in mind. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

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.

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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.