Another great Dinner Dance at the Army Golf Club with 67 people coming along. Good food, good company and good dancing. This was Vicky and Katherine’s last year as organisers – next year it will be a team led by Jo Baines. Good luck Jo. I’m sure it will go well.
50th anniversary celebration : 2023
Saturday September 2nd was a very special Finals day ; we were celebrating 50 years at our present site on Ewshot Lane. We had invited former members to join us and it was great that so many came. We have never had such a crowd for our Finals and the buzz around the club was amazing. The tennis almost took a bit of a back seat as there were so many people chatting and catching up with old friends
An added bonus was that three of the Junior trophies – the Seymour trophy, the Ryder trophy and the Archer trophy – were presented by guests Simon Seymour, Jill Ryder and Bill Archer.
Even the weather in this most fickle of summers was kind to us, indeed it was almost too warm. The catering team of Debra Norton, Linda Robson and Ann Hanson were kept very busy. Ann had a special reason for coming (though she always does come to help out) ; she was one of the club members who moved from our earlier site off Albany Road to our present one.
We hope these photos give some impression of the lovely day we had.
Thanks to Lina Robson for these photos. Please click on any one to start a slideshow of full size photos.
Finals weekend 2023 : photos
Well done to everyone who won through to the Finals, especially to our winners. A few familiar faces keep repeating in the photos : Peter Grant winning 4 finals and Jane Vincent also winning 4. The full results are in a separate post. Look out too for the post of photos of our past members helping us celebrate 50 years at Ewshot Lane. Three of our Junior winners were honoured to be presented with their trophy by the original donors who had come as our guests : the Seymour trophy for the U12 girls, the Ryder trophy for the U12 boys and the Archer trophy for the U18 boys.
Please click on an image to see a slideshow of the photos at full size
Mini Tennis Festival
We put on our first Mini Tennis Festival on March 25th. It was well-advertised around local schools but we still had no idea how many families would come along. The event was described as starting at 1:30; by 1:45 our car park was full and our activities were well underway.
It was a wonderful couple of hours. Lots of new faces, good weather, happy children. Just a lovely afternoon with so many youngsters (and parents!) enjoying themselves. There were some seriously good little players. How about the girl with the pink leggings and white cap? What style! Great preparation, eyes on the ball – don’t know if she hit it but it all looks good!
The clothes pegs were not a new fashion item, rather each one was the reward for success in an activity, proudly collected!
A big thank you to our coaching team, Kathy and Jamie, for organising, Zana for all the publicity, Jane and our young leaders for helping to run the activities, Debra for the delicious refreshments, Linda and Ken for car park safety and of course everybody who attended. Jamie in particular had a busy day : a full morning of coaching as usual, boundless enthusiasm during the afternoon and he still had the energy to vacuum the clubhouse when all our visitors had left.
Hallowe’en quiz
Thank you to everyone who came to our Hallowe’en quiz. It was a great evening with a good mix of questions and brain teasers. Sadly my team did not do that well – but we still enjoyed it. Well done to the winning team of Mike and Caro Thornley, Jon and Mo Clackett and Ailsa Fraser. As usual we were able to make a charity donation at the end of the event, thanks to the generosity of everyone in the raffle. The winners and runners up kindly donated their prize money back so that we were able to round up our donation to Alzheimers to £100.
Finals weekend : September 2022
What a weekend! Our first full Finals since 2019 and it was great to have Seniors and Juniors Finals once again on at the same time. The stand-out match on Saturday was the U16 Boys final; three hours of high quality tennis which would not have looked out of place as the Mens final. It went to three sets and was only resolved by a tie-break. Well done to both players : Jacob Diskin, the eventual winner, and Michael Palmer. In the Seniors Finals, David Jones achieved a unique hat-trick, winning the Mens Singles, the Mens Doubles with Dad Alistair and the Mixed Doubles with Mum Fran.
Thanks as always to Zana for organsing everything and to the catering team : Debra Norton, Karen Burke and Ann Hanson for working so hard over two long days.
Handicap tournament results 2022
Our first handicap tournament finals day fully back to normal since 2019. We did have one last year but still with some limitations due to Covid. This time – spectators, refreshments, trophy presentations and, as always, a good afternoon of competitive tennis. Well done to all the finalists.
Winner | Runner-up | |
Mens Singles | Santtu Asp | Mike Thornley |
Ladies Singles | Sue White | Helen Palser |
Mens Doubles | Graham Friel and Paul Hampshire | Santtu Asp and Oliver Mills |
Ladies Doubles | Lynn McKenzie and Sarah Gibbons | Sam Rush and Liz Long |
Mixed Doubles | Katherine Rusbridge and Cliff Church | Lynn McKenzie and Jonty Maston |
Jubilee Tournament
Our Jubilee event with 40 players and a magnificent tea was a great event. As Chair, Paul T said “What an amazing day today! Great organisation and fabulous food.” We even had a special visitor who seemed to be enjoying her day!
Well done to the finalists with winners : Sam Williamson and Roger Barnacle in the Mixed , Alison Jameson and Sue White in the Ladies.
Many thanks to everyone who came and help make it such a memorable day, especially to Linda Robson and Debra Norton who laid on such a wonderful tea for all 40 of us! They even had food left over as we were all so full. Who could believe that we would all fit into the space in front of the club house.
Lots of red, white and blue with some ingenious ways to achieve this. Best example was Sam who cut off a flag from her plastic bunting and ironed that onto her Tshirt. Took a few goes to get it right!
And the tennis arrangements weren’t bad either.
May American Tournament
Just two weeks after our Easter Monday tournament, we were back for the early May American. We limit the numbers of participants to 28 so that no-one has to sit out for more than one round of the six. We had 13 players who had not been with us on Easter Monday and we welcomed two new faces to this type of event.
Once we all arrived and registered (there is now a bit of standing joke between the regulars about one player who is nearly always last), play got underway in the usual competitive yet friendly manner.
Our winners were Mark Hill with an impressively consistent set of scores : 6,6,6,6,7 and Val Talbot who had to play all six rounds, scoring 6,5,4,6,6,6. Runners up were Clare Bambridge and Mike Thornley. Third place was tied in the Ladies (Kim Field and Lynn McKenzie), with Richard Eynon in the Mens.
Our next American will be on Thursday June 2nd, the first day of the Jubilee weekend. Should be a good event!
Finals 2021 photos
July American Tournament
We usually just have our American Tournaments on Bank Holiday Mondays but as we have been deprived of them for so long, we decided to slip in an extra one on a Sunday. The weather forecast for 25th July was for thundery rain storms but in the end 21 hardy players managed to play a full afternoon of tennis before the rain arrived.
It wasn’t just the tennis that was enjoyable – after four rounds of play there was a well earned break for tea and cakes before we resumed for a further 2 rounds. The cakes were particularly appreciated as seen in these photographs – many thanks to the bakers, Debra Norton and Linda Robson.
Back on court the winning lady was Sam Williamson with an amazing average of 6.4 in each round of 8 games and runner up Clare Bambridge. The Mens winner was Mark Hill with Pete Smith and Paul Treacy joint runners up. A very enjoyable afternoon all round.
No photos of the action this time, just people enjoying their tea break. Everyone was too busy playing!
Handicap tournament July 2021
All the organisers had their fingers crossed that we would be able to complete our Handicap Finals Day despite a very iffy weather forecast. It was rather stop-start but we made it. Good matches, closely fought, no more so that the Ladies final where the score was 31-28, 28-31, 31-29 . Well done to Cath Pearson for that win and for going on to win both the Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles; a clean sweep of each event she could enter.
Event | Winners | Runners-up |
Ladies Singles | Cath Pearson | Alison Jameson |
Mens Singles | Andy McElligott | Mitchell Elliot |
Ladies Doubles | Cath Pearson and Juliet Worthington | Carol-Anne Harrison and Kim Field |
Mens Doubles | Andy Cholerton and Graham Friel | Roger Barnacle and Andy McElligott |
Mixed Doubles | Cath Pearson and Richard Vallis | PJ Young and Mitchell Elliot |