Tribute to Barbara Billinge

Club News

You may have heard the sad news that Barbara Billinge passed away suddenly on 10th February 2025.

Barbara was an active member of Avondale for over 30 years and loved her tennis; she only recently, reluctantly,  gave up due to arthritis in her wrists. Barbara took part in competitive tennis at the club and played very well.

Barbara was a very sociable person and so had many friends at the club. She enjoyed being part of events such as the quiz, and still kept in touch with everyone on a regular basis.

Barbara will be sorely missed by all her friends at Avondale.

2024 : best season for Juniors

Club News, Juniors, League

The summer of 2024 was very successful for our Junior teams and individuals. We won four ADLTA Junior tournaments : U16 boys, U14 boys, U12 boys and U16 girls. There was a squad of 8 – 10 players for each of these teams with 3 playing in each match.

It has also been great to see junior players being picked for the adult teams, even getting into our Mens A team. Well done to Michael Palmer, Jacob Diskin and Oliver Casselton.

There has been individual success too at Hampshire level. Oliver Casselton won the U16 trophy, Noah Neeves U10 and Isaac Blake U8.

All of this reflects very well on the coaching team especially Jamie Cheetham who has taken on more responsibility as Kathy Charles recovers from an injury

Our tennis balls help fund-raising for Aldershot Lido and Ukraine

Club News

A neighbour of the Club whose house in Ewshot Lane backs on to the triangle of spare land adjacent to court one got in touch a few months ago to ask for some old tennis balls for an event at Aldershot Lido. We were happy to supply her with some, the dogs being less fussy about the quality of tennis balls than our players.

Here is the thank you note from one of the organisers :

“Just wanted to email to say a HUGE Thank You for the tennis balls for our Lido event!   It was a great weekend with sold out sessions (all that money went to the Lido) … but we did also manage to raise just shy of £1100 on our event stands and preloved merchandise stall – which all helps continue sending aid to Ukraine.

The tennis balls went down a treat and SOOO many people bought them, for a small donation, for their dogs to play and we had great fun shooting them into the pool for dogs to jump and fetch.  It was a really good weekend and we even made the evening news!”

Quiz night : May 2024

Club News, Photo Galleries, Social Events

Vicky put on one her great quizzes for us. These events are always sell-outs!

Here is some feedback which sums up our quiz night

“Thank you Vicky and Katherine so much for last night . It was a great success as ever . The questions were really good and lots of fun . The fish and chips were excellent and really hot which was really good . It all seemed very seamless . 
Thank you to Bob and Richard for serving the wine . All brilliant as usual .”

Play your way to Wimbledon

Club News, Juniors

Oliver was the winner of our Boys Singles Play Your Way to Wimbledon tournament and will go through to the next round which is organised by the LTA.

We will keep you updated on his progress.


The winners of the Smith’s Cup are also able to go through to the next round should they wish and/or be available.


Mini Tennis Festival March 2024

Club News, Juniors, Photo Galleries

With the event due to start at 2pm, it wasn’t looking promising with about 10 minutes to go; dark skies, even a short hailstorm, but our luck was in. The rain stopped, families started to arrive and soon all the activities aimed at the youngest visitors were underway. We even had blue sky!

Some of the visitors had already taken part in their usual Saturday morning coaching session and were keen to play again. The activities were a mixture of basic ball skills and actual racquet skills. There were some seriously good young players.

The stars of the show were, as always, our Junior helpers who worked cheerfully throughout despite the fact that it remained decidedly chilly. As impressive as their manner of helping was their skill. It is not that easy to feed a ball just so for a very young child to have a chance of hitting it.

Our thanks to all the people who helped make the event a success!

Rain!
catering
Blue sky!

League trophies

Club News, League

The ADLTA  trophies for the Mens’ winter league 2022-2023, Mens’ summer league 2023 and the Mixed summer league 2023 were presented to Avondale at the league AGM in the autumn. Some members of the A team squad were up at the club house for a recent match. Here they are pictured with the Mens’ winter and summer cups.

Thank you, Dave

Club News

Dave Adams has faithfully looked after the rack of tennis balls at the club for over 50 years! Not only has he sorted and replenished the balls in the rack routinely almost daily, he has also issued balls to team captains for home matches and the organiser of events such as the American Tournaments and Smiths Cup tournament, and I am sure much else besides.

He has recently stood down and a small team have taken on this role. As Paul Treacy said at our AGM, it has taken five people to replace him! Paul presented Dave with a memento of his contribution to the club which was, fittingly, topped with a tennis ball!

Summer League results

Club News, League

Our teams playing in the Aldershot & District league this summer have had some fabulous results!

  • Mixed A team won the Premier Division.
  • Men’s A team also won the Premier Division
  • Ladies A came a close 2nd in the Premier Division

A huge well done and thank you to all players across our 12 teams entered in the league. Particular thanks go to all the team captains for volunteering their time and efforts to manage a team.

Here’s to a successful winter season (14 Avondale teams entered!). Go Avondale go!!

50th anniversary celebration : 2023

Club News, Photo Galleries, Tournaments

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.