The Fans

In the interests of maintaining our precious tennis court, Theresa and Rose decided to join the Club committee. This allows them to put forward suggestions for the club budget, like flood lights for the court so we can play at night and the erection of a grand stand for our legions of fans, these being Theresa’s two dogs, Brownie and Jedi Ginger. They never missed a match. They are another reason Theresa joined the committee: Dogs aren’t allowed at the club and she feels this is discriminatory as she needs their moral support. Rose objected to Theresa having an unfair advantage by having her supporters on the court, to which Theresa retorted, “Bring your own dogs.” The problem with this is that I don't have a dog so we considered borrowing my mother’s dog, Daisy. Unfortunately Daisy is so fluffy, fat and round she looks like a sheep with its legs cut off. I don't believe that being represented by a sheep is not going to do my image much good and could even be detrimental to my mind-set given that sheep are not known for their vast brain power, not to mention their lack of ability to show loyalty to sports stars. This could all have been resolved very amicably if we could just have taught Brownie and Jedi to be ball-fetchers, but they seemed to be more inclined to just loll around on the court in the sun without showing even a passing interest in rolling tennis balls.

Sadly Brownie and Jedi are no longer with us. They have been replaced by two new dogs, T-Rex and Fendy. While sharing their predecessors lack of ball fetching skills, these two are also completely lacking in tennis decorum. T-Rex thinks nothing of strolling casually across the court in mid-rally while Fendy bounds up to Theresa, leaping up and down in front of her in an attempt to reach her sun visor while she is trying to serve. No mean feat given that Fendy is a Jack Russell, often characterised by their lack of stature.

Being as focused as we are on tennis, we try to ignore these distractions, a remarkable achievement since at any given time a passing stranger might be forgiven for thinking they were walking past the local circus. Performing dogs and children on bicycles and skateboards abound, whizzing around the perimeter of the court narrowly escaping being hit by flying tennis balls. On one occasion, Theresa unintentionally hit a stray soccer ball over the net. I got such a fright seeing what I thought was a grossly enlarged tennis ball coming at me that I lost my nerve and Theresa won the point. This was disputed of course, but I had no back up from my partner at the time because Rose had wandered off the court mid-point to answer her cell phone. Twenty minutes and a leisurely chat later, Rose returned to take up her position to find Theresa trying to bribe the children and dogs off the court with food and I had fallen asleep in the tram-lines tanning my legs.