Tag: Steve Virgona

An Afternoon & Evening At The Queen’s Club Watching The British Open & Dining With The Prossers, 22 November 2024

A very kind invitation from Richard Prosser, my oftentimes doubles partner for The Dedanists…

A Couple Of Special Afternoons & Evenings At The Queen’s Club With The Dedanists’ Society, 8 & 24 May 2024

…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:

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

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.

Real Tennis Skills Night & Club Nights At Lord’s, Some Really Real Tennis At Queen’s, Dedanist’s Lunch At Lemonia & Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner In Holborn, November & December 2023

This photo and others from Skills Night by Conor Coley, with thanks

Skills Night At Lord’s 1 November 2023

Lord’s Skills Nights, now held twice-yearly, have become “my thing”, by dint of me, foolishly, offering to help back in 2019. Foolishly, because I thought “help” might mean adding a bit of extra resource to a well-managed thing, rather than, as it turned out, replacing the manager who used to manage the well-managed thing. Thank you, Johnny Whiting.

Still, in truth I enjoy managing it as much of not more than I enjoyed playing it. The curry and wine afterwards always was the highlight and I can certainly still participate in that aspect.

At least i get to curate the prize-giving, providing room for all manner of subsidiary prizes and opportunities to give away gimcrack.

Most Valuable Player Award – a millionaire every time

The Close But No Cigar Award

If you have an MCC login – everything you ever wanted to know about his event but were afraid to ask can be found here. In the unlikely event that someone else wants to read my match report in excruciating detail, click here.

Lord’s Club Nights, 16 November and 13 December 2023

By similar method, although slightly less formal, Steven Bishop managed to finesse a seemingly one-off request to “look after Club Night” for him on one occasion just before the pandemic, into “I’m basically not really in London midweek any more…” me looking after Club Night most months.

This informal evening can be curated while playing, which I very much enjoy doing on these occasions. We get a mixture of regulars and newbies. It is always possible to mix and match, to make the evening fun and good practice for most if not all who attend.

An Afternoon Watching Really Real Doubles At Queen’s, 17 November 2023

The only slot of the British Open that worked for me this year – I very much enjoyed a few hours at Queen’s watching proper real tennis doubles on Quarter-Finals afternoon. I saw Rob Fahey and Nicky Howell overcome Levi Gale & Lewis Williams, then John Lumley & Steve Virgona defeat Claire Fahey and Louis Gordon. A pleasant afternoon, during which time I ran into several people I know, which is more or less guaranteed if you go to see real tennis.

Dedanist’s Lunch At Lemonia Followed By Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner At Spaghetti House Holborn, 14 December 2023

A Highlight of the real tennis year is the Dedanist’s seasonal lunch, at Lemonia. On this occasion I needed to be reasonably abstemious because OI was going on that evening to the annual Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner afterwards.

But reasonably abstemious still allowed for a glass-and-a-half of wine, some tasty grub and excellent company.

The photo below from the Ivan Shakespeare, not The Dedanist’s.