The Tennis Club held its traditional ‘Old’ vs. ‘Young’ tournaments over the Christmas period with the Men’s event on 27th December and the Ladies’ match on 2nd January. The ‘Oldies’ triumphed in both matches but it was very close in the men’s and Ladies’- one of the youngest ever ‘Young’ teams put up a great fight.

The Men’s Young team was also very young and the match went down to the last rubber with Mike Dugdale and Derek Humphrey somehow managing to win the final match to give the Oldies victory by 8.5 to 7.5. The match had been level after each of the four rounds. The Oldies were represented by Neil James, Huw Phillips, Nigel Godwin, Steve Gasper, Alan Connor, David Ballinger, Mike Dugdale and Derek Humphrey while the Young Ones were Adam Poole,  Andrew Humphrey, Robbie Norridge, Elliot Poulter, Ben Thomas, Jack Ballinger, Alex Smillie and Craig Smith.

The Oldie Ladies’ victory was a little more comfortable though how many years they will be able to sustain this looks uncertain as a fairly inexperienced Young team made life tough for some of the Oldie stalwarts. The Oldies were represented by Maria Bailey, Marian Paton, Yvonne Lamont,  Veronica Humphrey, Elizabeth Shaw and Ali Banham while the Young Ones were Amy Finnemore, Poppy Brown, Isabel Shaw, Katie Jackson, Jo Banham and Lara Brown.

Earlier in Autumn, the Club’s Ladies joined The MacMillan World’s Biggest Coffee morning and raised £175 for this worthwhile cause – the day was blessed with sunshine to go with some gentle tennis and lots of homemade cakes and freshly brewed coffee.

This article was written by Andrew Brown and first appeared in the February/March 2012 edition of Village Voice (issue 148). To see it in its original format please select the relevant edition from the Village Voice pages of this website.