The latest American Tournament held on Sunday 2nd August was won by Andy Asher and Sylvia Hines who can both be seen in the gallery photographs proudly clutching their prizes. See the gallery page >>

As well as a very successful tournament, there was a celebration to mark our longest serving member - Alan Cooper - attaining 40 years of membership. Although the celebration was meant to be a surprise to him, the Treasurer had let the cat out of the bag, allowing Alan time to both prepare and research a speech. Alan described some of the key events in 1969, including the Wilson government and the moon landings: he observed that the astronauts could well have rehearsed their endeavours on our courts which at the time had a similar surface to that of the moon. He also noted that his initial annual membership of 5 guineas would be around £96 in today's money, and asked Mike to justify why the subscription is now quite a lot more: the answers rained down on him in no uncertain manner.

Alan is in fact the only member of the club to play tennis with the founder of the club - Guy Chester - who at the time in 1969 was 86, and who died some 5 days later, though whether the shock of playing with Alan was a contributory factor is not known.