What a year it has been. Having worked throughout this pandemic whilst sadly seeing colleagues, friends, customers and relatives manage this unprecedented situation, I found myself undecided as to whether we should miss a year of PICT Tennis. Having taken a cross section of opinions from some of the hardy annuals, I decided almost at the eleventh hour we will not let this beat us!
On the quiet it also meant me and my partner’s name would still be the latest on the Penman Trophy, ha ha. Knowing full well that the experienced duo of Jonathan Clay and Andrew Dunning were back together this year.
At one stage, the week before, we were up to eight pairs, which would have ordinarily been a grand turnout, sadly no ladies but common sense prevailed as Brian Garson confirmed he woke up with a voice that Barry White would have been proud of. This knocked one pair out. Then an e-mail from Tony Wood’s partner, Steve Maher, who had a back injury that just wasn’t going to go away. So, missing these regulars, we still managed with six pairs in the round robin and, hopefully, a once in a lifetime before picture with masks, hand sanitizer, thermometers and nitril gloves all at the ready, sponsored by Premier Paper.
On arrival temperatures were taken and here we have the league table of who’s hot and who’s not:
JL Hagger 36.1
Paul Williams 35.5
Andrew Dunning 35.2
Jonathan Clay 35.0
Bernie Byers 34.9
Olly Gale 34.6
Matt Kidd 33.8
David Kentish 32.9
Wesley Perks 32.8
Martin Dibsdale 32.8
John Vic 32.4
Pete Stevens 32.6
Phil Trudgeon 32.0
And as you can see from the beautiful blue skies the weather blessed us all again.
(group shot picture to go here?)
Sam Ayling, also at the eleventh hour, kindly replaced himself with the very welcome Bernie Byers so that we maintained a pairing from Ricoh.
We also had some visitations throughout the day. With Brian Garson nursing himself, David Kentish still kindly turned up for the day along with PICT President Rod Benwell, whom we nearly got involved in the tennis and Simon Pilkington from Fedrigoni, who once again kindly sponsored the lunch, many thanks also to Sappi UK for covering the courts and bar and Papico for the trophies and balls.
Thanks to all these kind people we will be sending a cheque to PICT for £240.00, which is the sum of the subs for the day to help with all of their excellent work in the industry.
Now to the tennis ...
The Round Robin blatantly proved one thing, that the much sought after Wooden Spoon would be a straight fight between Bernie Byers/Wesley Perks and Olly Gale/Pete Stevens pairings. The Ricoh pairing ran away with the Wooden Spoon Trophy.
The Johnston Cup final pitched Paul Williams and Phil Trudgeon against JL Hagger and Martin Dibsdale. They elected to play the best of three sets, and they indeed needed all three sets as the scores in the first were 7 – 6 in a tie-break then JL and Martin took the second set 6 – 2 and the deciding championship tie-break set 10 – 3 and thus the returning pairing of JL Hagger and Martin Dibsdale returned as worthy 2020 Johnston Cup Winners.
The Penman Cup, shock, horror, was to be between last year’s holders, Matt Kidd and myself, against the returning three times winners Jonathan Clay and Andrew Dunning. Was it to be a one season wonder or would Matt and I get past our Nemesis pairing from 2016/2017/2018. Again we decided the best of three sets and Matt and I took the first set 6 – 2. We found ourselves 1 – 4 down in the second set and déjà vu psychologically beckoned. Amazingly we got back to 6 – 6 to win the tie-break and get back-to-back wins but this time against the favourites from previous years.
Happy, but now the adrenalin had ceased to oil the knees, we all retired to the balcony bar for a socially distanced and well earned beer.
Thank you to everyone that persevered in times that would have easily allowed for us not to bother at all. This invisible killer will not win! So once again, thank you to all the players, sponsors and Northampton Lawn Tennis Club, whose facilities just improve year-on-year.
I can now confirm the date for 2021 is Thursday 16th September 2021. So save the date now!