"Millennium Scroll" Administration Award 2017
The Wildmoor Tennis League for the South Warks Area presented a top Administration Award.
This trophy, the “Millennium Scroll” is for the best individual Administrator of 2017 in the League. The League Secretary Corin Bishop, whose personal choice was Gavin Smithers of Moreton-in-Marsh Tennis Club, awarded this shield.
Gavin has been the captain and contact for Moreton-in-Marsh B team in the Wildmoor Spa Summer Tennis League for the last four years since 2014. He has been playing and organising tennis at Moreton since 2009 when he moved from Redditch to Broadway and joined the Moreton-in-Marsh club. His club had joined the Wildmoor Spa Summer League in 2004. He thanked the Wildmoor Spa League for recognising the role of the club captain/contact and his players who consistently turned out in all weathers making his job as captain much easier.
Gavin’s club’s Moreton-in-Marsh A Team have won the Division 3 title in 2005, Division 2 in 2006, and were the Runners-Up in Division 1 in 2007. His Moreton B team were runners-up in both Division 4 and the Pairs Cup in 2008 and his club won the “King Cup” as Club of the Year in 2010. The B Team went on to be runners-up in the Pairs Cup again in 2011 and runners-up in Division 4 in 2012. In recent years Moreton A team have won Division 3 in 2013, Division 2 in 2014 and Division 1 in 2015 and are currently in the Premier Division.
Gavin played tennis at Durham on clay as a teenager, then on grass at Oxford as a university student. He did not play again until his eldest son was being coached at Alcester and he wanted to give him a game. His son is currently in the USA teaching tennis to young children.
Gavin spent twenty years in banking and sales; ran his own business; worked as a business consultant in the public sector; since 2009, he has been a private tutor and writer and has sold 14,000 books through his Amazon page – study guides for English Literature GSEs and A-Levels.
Gavin volunteered in 2014, the same year he had joined Moreton, to take over as the Division Five Organiser for the Wildmoor Spa League and has done an excellent job in administering this division as well as the Moreton B Team. His record this year and in previous years has been impeccable and he is thoroughly deserving of this award.