I did promise a report as usual on Sunday but things got a bit out of hand on Saturday so I just did not get round to it. Never mind readers: given me more time to think about what to say. Photo: Solent Cup winners at Southsea with the cup (that is Frankie Colling behind the silverware).

I am not going to drag through the year’s activities like some Chairperson at the AGM although that would be the easy thing to do. Highlight of the year for me was the photo of the Solent Cup being held up by Magda Kornijczuk – the cup was almost as tall as she used to be: did you hear that she and her county partner beat Laura Robson in a County Cup match: now that is a coupe de grace, or whatever is the equivalent in Polish.

Second best event was the one witnessed by far too few of you – the closing numbers at the Masala n Music event in June. Estella and Jocelyn had been worked hard in the weeks prior to the evening so the encore of “House of the Rising Sun” was especially good. The whole evening was a success bringing in over £500 with only 80 in the room: if we had a full house we would have raised another £700 or more. It was  wonderful food from Bhumita & Ketan Bharadia, great raffle ticket selling from the Collings and Ardleys and great singing from Harry Dunnett & Leon C. A magic evening all round made better by the great reception of the audience.

There was a Skittles evening in March – “not many people know that” as Harry would have said (no not Dunnett). It was going so well for all of us until Head Coach Paul arrived. His first set of balls was, quite frankly, awful. Now you do not become Senior National Tennis Champion of UK. 2018 if you are not good at sport: it took just one set of bowls and learning the rules and that was it: farewell to the box of Roses for the rest of us: mind you for Paul as well as he left them behind at the end of the evening!

The Road to Wimbledon Club Tournament was held in May (“not many people know that”) and we had a full 16 draw for the boys and 8 draw for the girls. Competition was great, even the less experienced girls enjoyed the day as the opportunity to play round-robin or compass draws was included. Estella Hurlock, Tom Flynn and Leon Chatterton helped me as court supervisors with 8 courts in use right up to the finals. It was disappointing that as the LTA has changed the date of Wimbledon the Men’s Final was on the same day that Hampshire & Isle of Wight held their County Road to Wimbledon: our girl’s winner, Nakshatra Sridhar had won tickets in the Wimbledon Ticket Draw and they opted for Wimbledon over Southsea: I am hoping Hampshire & IoW LTA has made suitable representations to the Wimbledon organisers to change their finals to a more convenient date! How could they change their Tournament dates without informing our County organisers!

Now Final’s Day was moved back to September this year: I say “back” as it was in living memory held in September at one time. The theory (mine) was that we would have more people there in September as they would not be away on holidays. Wrong! Our elite young men all went off to University this year and those going to the better sport university places had to be there early to compete for places in their squads. However those who remained (those not injured, sick, called away due to family crises played their hearts out). The standard of the tennis was just breath-taking: the Girl’s Open saw a really tough battle between Magda K and Anna Vinnell that dominated the courts for a good hour. The Boy’s 14s final between Freddie Swain and Sam Ardley was expected to be a 45 minute encounter that was on court for 160 minutes – and that was for only two sets! The Men’s Championship Final started the day for James Ardley and Milan Bharadia: this was another great final that James won in what was a really close match. After a brief rest James & Milan paired up for the Men’s Championship Doubles against Paul Stavely & Slavek Kornijczuk. James & Milan’s warm up resulted in them soundly beating Paul & Slavek who used every tactic and guile that more experienced players use to try to disrupt younger players but were just not good enough to hold off the young pair. Another short break and James and Milan were back out to play the Boy’s 16s & Open Final: this was even closer than the Boy’s final and what was astounding was that they were both still running at the end when I was struggling to walk without having played a point! I also have to mention the Girl’s Challenge Final between Erin Perry and Georgia Skiada: we have a great crop of young girls in training so it was decided that they would play off to the semi-finals with the two progressing to the older girl’s competition: Erin was a bit strong for a relatively inexperienced Georgia but they had a good match and Georgia learned a great deal from the encounter. Louis Still also learned a lot in his Final (12s) against Harry Robinson. The only other Final was the Men’s Preliminary Singles that Tony Slingsby won against Charlie George. Pity so few people came along.

The League season was a bit disappointing, especially for the Juniors, but since we have seen that wonderful crop of boys progress to Adulthood this is no surprise. The Adults had a pair of mixed seasons and, quite rightly, the Men reduced their winter league team by one to compensate for the loss of James Blair, Mats Colling, Alex Billingham and others who left to attend University. Only compensation is that provided match schedules can be fixed such that the tough matches are after May it should be possible to draft in some of them later in the summer season!

Not much else to add about tennis this week: see the inter-season break is over for the WTA and ATP so I have something to occupy my eyes for the next 11 months! Keep looking in to the website each week to keep up with the “news according to Bill” and to find out “What’s On”. I try to keep everything up to date provided I have the information.

I see that this week a Frenchman is planning upon crossing the Atlantic in a barrel: mind if it is full when he starts he will probably think he is there once the wine runs out. Despite Brexit our airports are destined to still be run by foreigners: Gatwick has effectively been taken over by Vinci a French firm (now that last bit was news to me as I thought Vinci was Italian). Add to this the heart-warming news that a French boy was found alive in France 40 minutes after being buried by an avalanche just makes it a week for our close neighbours across the channel: very tempted to crack some jokes about the French but in the interests of “detante” I will refrain as it is the New Year.

So all of you have a HAPPY NEW YEAR and any of you looking in on New Year’s Eve remember that only the designated drinker can imbibe unless you are walking home. Talk to you next year, OK?

Next Week: not much, hangovers for sure and maybe a NYD walk to try to de-cobweb the brain.

Title: Norman Gimbel, composer who wrote the theme music for the TV series: 1976