You’d think as the weather turns chillier that club tennis players would pack up their rackets and hibernate until next summer – but that’s not the case at Cirencester.
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We have no less than seven teams braving the winter weather to play in the Dunlop Gloucestershire Floodlit League. Our mixed doubles A team is in the top division and holding their own, the Bs have a habit of drawing and will probably end up mid table in division 2. The Cs are having quite a tough time in 3 but the Ds are in great shape in division 4 and the Es doing well in 5 with games in hand and hope to go up. Last but by no means least – our Gs and Fs are in the lowest division but still enjoy their games and give it their all.
The seven squads have used 56 players so far – but there’s much more winter wonderfulness to find on our courts!
If you ever pop up to the club on a Monday afternoon or Thursday morning you will find a very hardy bunch, known as the ‘roll-ups’ – they usually have enough players to use all seven courts and they decide who will partner who using playing cards.
Bowl up on a drizzly Sunday afternoon and you could easily find some round robin doubles games, Ben Knapp a GB over 45s player coaching his daughter, a family playing with orange balls and probably a couple of people bashing the ball around for a singles work out.
Cold doesn’t stop the excellent coaching programme either – ADS, headed up by Adam Swan has a very busy schedule – drills 5 times per week for adults, and 20 junior sessions across the week which cater for over 150 people. Adam is assisted by his budding team of young coaches – Jack, Travis, Carl and Zach.
That’s the playing side of things – but then there’s all the maintenance too. Like leaf blowing, net tape fixing, shed roof repairs, club house cleaning, our hush-hush and slightly secretive toilet committee and a website to maintain with live weather and twitter feeds… And if you think a little inconvenience like snow would stop us here at Cirencester, think again!
Cirentennis.net @cirentennis