In a bid to heighten awareness of the impending crowdfunding initiative to raise funds for the replacement of the top courts and other improvements, our second social tournament of the year took place on Saturday 9th October.

Pairs were drawn out of a hat of sorts, with nine partnerships playing each other over 8-game matches.  The weather graced the occasion to begin with, but gradually began to misbehave, and finally let us down completely, leading to a truncation of the full match schedule.

Mention must be made of two incidents of players turning their backs on the action when the play was still live.  Les, partnering Charles, heroically dived for a ball that Charles considered a lost cause, and scooped the ball up, only to find the opponents putting the ball away into an empty court, Charles having given up on the point.  Les has the scars on his knee to prove the extent of his heroics, with a bloody wound, not unlike that suffered by Emma Raducanu in slightly different circumstances at the US Open.  Paul Ward committed a similar crime, turning his back after a smash had surely won the point, but not counting on Lilian miraculously shovelling the ball back over Paul's head as he walked back to the base line, with his partner Steve Watkins' shouts falling on deaf ears.

To the results, then.  In third place, on 36 games, was Gary McDonnell and Iain Hedley.  Perhaps they could have done even better if Gary hadn't decided to persevere with a cracked racquet for the last few games, instead of going for his spare — apparently the crocked racquet gave his shots extra spin.  First and second places were decided on the head-to-head encounter, since both Charles Ross in partnership with Les Hall and Jill Taylor paired with James Chapman gleaned 38 games.  But as Jill and James came through 5-3 in their match against Les and Charles, Jill and James were declared champions.  Special commendation for Les, though, for nobly pointing out how the deadlock could be broken, even though it relegated his team into second place.

In the photo you might be able to detect the winning pairing holding aloft the prestigious hot chocolate trophy, which was very much needed after the drenching that everyone got before play was abandoned.

So, let's hope that the crowdfunding initiative really takes off, and that we have another social tournament soon, at which we hope to see Gary, Eleanor and Iain Hedley with new racquets.  The latter two had racquets with handles that looked like they'd been savaged by a dog and strings from a bygone era, so I'm sure that with some decent equipment the two of them will be world-beaters.