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November 2006

Saturday 25th November: Christmas Dinner & Dance
What a great night!  Well done to Sue Barry and her team for a very well organised and most enjoyable evening... and thanks to the Cranleigh for looking after us.

Please feel free to send me your comments on the evening; it would be nice to hear what you thought was good, bad or just plain funny.  I hope some pictures will be on their way to me soon so watch this space and keep your eye on the Photo Gallery.

Highlights from our table included a near miss with a very full bottle of wine and a large number of raffle winners - not sure the handbag went with Dave's eyes though.

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October 2006

Thursday 16th November: Beaujolais Night
Jackie Jenkins writes... a date for your diary, join us at 8:30pm Thursday 16th November for the club's annual "Beaujolais Night" coinciding with the official release of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau.  No ticket required.

According to an entry found on Wikipeadia the free online Encyclopedia...

"Generally speaking, a Beaujolais should be consumed within the first three years of its life in order to ensure quality; only the wine produced by the best vintners improve with age for up to ten years."

...so, just in case, and given we're not "the best vintners", we'd better polish it off on the night!  See you there.

Sunday 15th October: Chelmsford Junior Tennis Association - Plate Finals
Mark Gray writes... Firstly, as a CJTA committee member I'd like to extend our thanks to the club for hosting the CJTA Plate Finals competition this year.  Now with my Cranston Park publicity hat on I'd like to report that although it was a rather chilly day there was again some excellent junior tennis on display.  Furthermore, Cranston Park had a winner!  Congratulations to Emily Defroand on taking the Girls Under 13 title beating L Mountford from Clearview 6-1 6-4.  Well done!

Friday 13th October: Blueprint for British Tennis
It's here, the long awaited plan from the LTA to revitalise British tennis. The Blueprint for British tennis sets out the LTA's vision, direction and proposed outline plans for the future of the sport in this country. This site also offers the chance to study the Blueprint and give feedback on the contents.

www.blueprintforbritishtennis.co.uk

Thursday 5th October: Congratulations to Neil and Jo!
John McKernan writes... On behalf of the committee and all club members at Cranston Park we'd just like to say a collective congratulations to Neil and Jo Twitchett on the arrival of their baby girl Rebecca Iris Twitchett weighing in at 7lbs 12oz.

Sunday 8th October: Autumn American Tournament
Martin Vine writes... A very successful American Tournament was held at the club on Sunday. Nearly 30 members turned out to enjoy the tennis in glorious autumn sunshine.  Chris Carman won the Ladies event with Lin Jones the runner-up. We had joint winners for the men – Kumar Menon and Mike Jones.  Lunch was served afterwards – all in all a very enjoyable morning. Thanks to everyone who helped.  A small profit of just over £20 was made. It has been decided to donate this to St Francis Hospice in memory of John Freeman.

Sunday 8th October: ECLTA Mini Tennis Summer 2006 Tour Grand Finals... CPLTC juniors Olivia Sofrianou and George Gray rounded off successful summer mini tours with respective victories in the Orange and Green Mini Tour Finals held at Redbridge Sports & Leisure sponsored by The Essex Tennis Parents Association.  After winning her group Olivia came from behind in the final to secure a well deserved victory.  George won his group without dropping a game going through to face James Caddies from Clearview in the final.  Continuing his winning streak George took the final 4-0.  Also taking part with George were Nick Wade and Rohan Mayor.

Well done Guys!

September 2006

Sunday 24th September: Romford & District Tennis League tournament and presentation
Bob Pudney writes...This event was held at the Club on Saturday 23rd September. A Round Robin tournament comprising 7 R&D Clubs from Raphaels Park, Grosvenor, Chadwell Heath, Elm Park, Gidea Park, Havering and Cranston Park. Pairs were allocated into groups consisting of 2 mens, 1 mixed and 1 ladies totaling 17 pairs in total, each pair playing the other pairs in their group. The Mens group 1 was won by Raphaels Park, Mens group 2 won by Cranston Park pairing of Dave Waterfield and Aaron Kumar, the Mixed and Ladies group were won by Grosvenor.

The tournament was followed in the evening by a buffet and presentation of prizes and trophies for the Summer League. Cranston Park had their fair share of victory this year, picking up the Mens Division 3 and the Ladies trophies, teams ably Captained by Les and Sue Barry respectively. The trophies were presented by John Tucker, the League Chairman.

Earlier in the day the finals of the Junior Postal Tournament took place starting at 10.00am with the last event not finishing until almost 5.00pm. Christine Jolly had been running this event during the summer culminating in these finals. The results of these events can be found by following the Romford & District League link on the Cranston Park website.

The Romford & District League Committee would like to thank Cranston Park for the use of the courts and facilities during the day.

Sunday 17th September: Men's 1: Essex League
Martin Vine writes...The Men’s first team has completed their final two matches with a 13-5 away win to Harlow and a 9-9 draw with Grosvenor.  We were missing two of our normal first team for the Grosvenor match but this did give us the opportunity to play two of our up and coming intermediates – James Davis and Billy Elliot. They acquitted themselves well and managed to win a vital set in the last round against their third pair which meant we earned a draw.  We ended up the season with 113 points from five victories, 1 draw and two losses – well done to everyone.

Sunday 10th September: Parent & Child Tournament
This time of year doesn't often bring a whole day of blue sky and sunshine but yet again another CPLTC event was blessed with perfect playing conditions.  Perfect as long as you remembered your hat and sun cream - oops!  Entrants this year allowed for 1 green ball tournament and 3 regular ball tournaments with a total of 24 playing pairs.  Defending their titles were Uncle Olly Kazemi and Dylan Walker in Tournament 1 and Mark and George Gray in Tournament 2 with strong representations from the Whitbreds and Acremans. 

Play commenced at around 10:15 which coincided with the delivery of the Bouncy Castle and Gladiator inflatable just in case parents needed something between matches to take their minds off the growing pressure from their expectant playing partners. The tournament, organized by Neil Walker, went without a hitch even when control of the score table was entrusted to yours truly when both Neil and Olly were called to action on courts 5 and 6.  All matches were played in the spirit of the event with most children carrying their partners who were often seen out of position and standing accused of not trying hard enough.  After a lunch of pizza and hot sausage rolls Neil awarded prizes to tournament winners and runners up followed by the obligatory kids football match on courts 1 and 2.  If you missed this year's event make sure you don't miss next year's; it's a great day enjoyed by all.

Tournament 1 Winners:
Uncle Olly Kazemi & Dylan Walker
Tournament 1 Runners up:
Auntie Faye Dixey & Jess Walker
Tournament 2 Winners:
Mark & George Gray
Tournament 2 Runners up:
Alan & Matt Langdon
Tournament 3 Winners:
Neil & Jasmine Walker
Tournament 3 Runners up:
Tim & Elizabeth Acreman
Tournament 4 Winners:
Mark & Alex Wray
Tournament 4 Runners up:
Sarah & Amelia Acreman

Thanks to Neil Walker for organising the tournament; Jo Gray for organising the bouncy castle and food; Sue Hathaway, Sue Barry and Virginia Cambridge for cooking and selling the food; Keith Stevens for running the bar; me for driving to Costco; and Les Barry for supplying the sausages for the hot sausage rolls.

LTA Website for Parents
Martin Vine writes... Judy Murray and the LTA have launched a new website designed specifically for parents of junior tennis players. It sets out what junior players need to do to maximise their potential in terms of training, coaching and tournament programmes.  It also covers overseas competition, match analysis, nutrition, injury prevention, fitness for tennis and much more. Visit www.BritishTennisParents.com

LTA Roadshow
Martin Vine writes... Essex LTA is hosting an LTA Roadshow at Deanes Tennis Centre on 15^th October. The idea of the Roadshow is basically to have a look at young talented children from Essex. There will be on and off court education sessions for coaches working with performance players but also an educational session for parents and children not involved in the day.  Anyone interested should contact Neil Walker. The parents’ session will be from 4.15pm to 5.30pm.

LTA National Accredited Performance Programme
Martin Vine writes... The LTA are constructing a national network of independent, high-quality training environments for players with the desire and ability to compete at the highest level.  The LTA wants to provide greater coaching and training opportunities for county and national-standard players. To do this they have created a backbone of centers’ of excellence, which includes County and National Performance Player Accredited Performance Programmes and High Performance Centres.  Their goal is to have a minimum of 50 national-level Performance programmes operating, of which 20 will be at HPC’s.  The philosophy is to devolve responsibility to clubs and coaches who have the ability to deliver high-quality Performance Programmes to small squads of players.

Cranston Park achieves County Accreditation
Martin Vine writes... I am pleased to announce that the club has achieved County Accreditation within the LTA’s Club Performance Programme. We will receive a grant of £4,000 from Essex LTA which will be used to enhance our current Club Performance Programme.  This award is for twelve months only and will be reviewed based on results of the juniors selected to join the programme.  Other clubs in Essex to achieve this status are Harlow, Billericay and Frinton. Connaught, Clearview and Garons have achieved National Accreditation. An Academy is also to be set up at Redbridge.

More information to follow.

Mixed Handicap Tournament
Martin Vine writes... A one day Mixed Handicap Tournament is to be held at the club on Sunday October 8^th starting at 10am. Matches will be played in round robin groups to start with followed by a knock-out for group winners.  Lunch will be provided. Entry Forms will be placed on the Tournament Notice Board shortly – so please enter as it should be an enjoyable day’s tennis.

Men’s 1 – Essex League
Martin Vine writes... The Men’s first team is closing the gap on Clearview in the race for the Division 3a title. We have won four matches so far, losing two, one of which was 10-8 without our full team.  Victories in our two remaining matches against Harlow and Grosvenor should push us close to the title.

August 2006

Saturday 5th August: Summer BBQ
The Summer BBQ held on Saturday, 5th August, was very successful. As various members had requested a tennis tournament to kick the evening off this was arranged, with the ladies winner being Lin Jones and the men’s winner, Adam Taylor. The BBQ was superbly organised by Sue and Les Barry, assisted by Virginia and Nathan Cambridge, Sue Hathaway and Sheila Waller together with the barmen, Bob Geary and Dave Brown Jnr. The food was magnificent, such a variety of meats, you name it we had it, and Les is the next “Gordon Ramsay” (without the expletives!!). The weather was beautiful, there was plenty of food and a good time was had by all. We even had Mike Jones, wearing his flashing birthday badge, celebrating his birthday with us. At the last moment a substitute birthday cake was created out of a very large table candle covered with little ones, duly lit, but of course non edible! If we had known in advance we might have come up with the real thing. Never mind Mike, there’s always next year!

July 2006

Sunday 9th July: Club Championships
Ok, so where did the summer go. Overcast with occasional drizzle is not what you'd expect for club finals day after weeks of glorious weather, but there again it was also men's finals day at Wimbledon so perhaps not that surprising. With a busy program of tennis ahead all first session matches were well underway by 10:30am watched by a small gathering of slightly chilly coffee drinking spectators.

First up on the "show" court was the Men's Singles Final.  An eagerly awaited competition between last years champion Trevor Higgs and Jordan Jones a representative from a growing crop of outstanding Cranston Park intermediates. Taking the first set 6-4 Jordan failed to capitalize and went down in the second set 1-6 only to rally again taking the third set 6-4 and securing his position as the first men's champion on the new Roll of Honour board in the clubhouse. At the same time on Court 3 Claire Dixey and Heather Jones were contesting the Ladies Singles Final. Proving too strong for Heather, Claire took the match 6-1 6-0 making this her 4th consecutive Ladies Singles title.

The Men's Doubles was another eagerly awaited contest pitching Neil Walker and son Dylan up against Neil's partner from last year's winning pairing, Mark Downes, this year joined by Marlon Billings.  Neil's match strategy included mind games with several creative attempts to rattle Mark and Marlon days before the match; you could almost hear teeth grinding - "hope your forehand holds up Marlon" - "I really don't care that you were featured on the front cover of Ace Magazine, you're still going to lose".  Any father and son partnership, or for that matter, any family pairing will be at the mercy of pre-match upsets and disagreements before they even get on court.  All I can say is that the Walker's were not on their game raising the question did Neil leave the Guinea Pigs out last night or perhaps the lucky hat was left at home?  In the end team Walker's wheels definitely came off going down to Mark and Marlon 6-1 6-2.

The formidable pairing of Chris Jolly and Cath Peck saw the longstanding partnership win both the Ladies Doubles Final and Ladies Vets Doubles Final.   Bradley Tungatt also won 2 titles successfully securing the Boys Under 18 title beating James Defroand and the Boys Under 16 title beating Billy Elliot.  Click here for more finals day pictures and click here to see all Sunday's results.

It goes without saying that a big thank you should be extended to Martin Vine, Neil Walker and Jo Gray for making sure the championships ran smoothly and not forgetting thanks to all those that helped out on the day.  Oh, and the day was also marked by another Wimbledon Men's Singles Title for Roger Federer defeating Rafael Nadal 6-0 7-6(5) 6-7(2) 6-3, making it 4 in a row.

July 2006: Summer Sports Day
Saturday 1st July 2006 Cometh the hour, cometh the man...
The club posters were spot on; in the World Cup it was England playing and at Wimbledon it was Andy Murray.  Once again a feeling of excitement and anticipation swept through the club on a perfect summers day.  Hats off to Declan Trew who marked the day with a sponsored head shave raising £80 for The Bobby Moore Fund for cancer research.  However, I don't think the Sven-Goran Eriksson look is going to catch on somehow and Neil Walker should definitely stick to tennis; his hairdressing lacked the obligatory hair dresser small talk although, he did remember to ask Dec if he'd like his eyebrows trimmed... off!

Events were delayed until after the England match, full time, extra time, and those inevitable penalties with their inevitable conclusion - perhaps penalty taking should be part of the national curriculum.  As the England players trudged off the field the clubhouse quickly emptied adjourning to courts 1 and 2 for the football tournament, court 6 for the mini tennis and courts 7 and 8 for the tennis tournament.  Those still in a state of disbelief somehow found their way to the bar for pre Murray vs Roddick drinks. 

The BBQ was well underway with a steady trade in burgers and sausages prepared by Sam, Bob and Hazel followed by strawberries and cream, organised by Gina and Gill.  As the football tournament reached it's halfway point Andy Murray beats Andy Roddick in straight sets!  At last something to celebrate - back to the bar for post-match drinks and analysis.

A steady stream of families joined us during the evening enjoying just sitting having a drink, taking part in one of the events or watching the sport on TV.  A great day, even though England went out of the World Cup.  So, to finish I'm sure you'll all want to join me in a big thank you to Chris and Hazel for organising a very successful event, not forgetting Neil Walker for organising the football, Neil Twitchett for organising the tennis and all the volunteer barmen and bar ladies.

More pictures in the Photo Gallery, click here>>

June 2006

June 2006: Cranston Park in the grip of World Cup fever.
Saturday 10th June 2006 the World Cup Sweepstake draw...
The excitement and anticipation was palpable at the club on Saturday morning with only a few hours left to wait before England's first match in the 2006 World Cup.  Not just the day of reckoning for Sven but also for the organisers of the club sweepstake with the draw due to take place before the 2:00pm kick-off.  All went according to plan... well only just for Sven mind you.  Draw results below, good luck everyone (and boy am I going to need it "come on Serbia & Montenegro" the World Cup equivalent of Accrington Stanley).

June 2006: Lost Property will be disposed of to charity 4 times a year: 1st August, 1st November, 1st February and 1st May.
Being asked to put information about lost property on the website, in the club newsletter (soon, honest... more content please) and on a poster for the club house notice boards is a request that is right up there with watching paint dry. So, this got me thinking about the other places people lose or leave belongings.  For example on the Tube, buses, trains and taxis in London where over 130,000 items are mislaid by their owners every year of which only 60,000 people get their stuff back. Some of the stranger unclaimed items that haven't made it back to their owners are: a wedding dress, a 40-pound, four-foot exercise machine, a kitchen sink, and two urns (information sourced from Going Underground's Blog on the Internet).  I'll let you know when something interesting turns up in our lost property!  In the mean time, to help stop this growing problem, lost property will be disposed of to charity 4 times a year: 1st August, 1st November, 1st February and 1st May.

May 2006

Summer Sports Day at Cranston Park.
Saturday 1st July 2006 Programme... Just released the programme of events for what will be a great day of sport outside and inside, with organised events on the courts and Wimbledon and World Cup football on the Clubhouse TV's. Members & Non-members are welcome (£1.00 entrance fee).  The bar will be open with a Barbecue from 6:00pm followed by strawberries and cream.

May 2006: Social News.
Sue Barry writes... A big thank you to all of you who have supported the Indian Night and most recently the Soul Disco. I'm sure you would agree that social events are a great way to get everyone together and create another dimension within the club. I am planning a barbeque for 5th August, and Keith Stevens has kindly agreed to host a quiz on 28th October. I am also trying to arrange another wine tasting evening.

For those of you who have not seen the poster in the clubhouse - The Cranleigh has been reserved for a Xmas Dinner Dance on 25th November, and although it seems along way off I do need to know the level of interest. Please try and gather a table together and put your names down asap. The Cranleigh has been used before and is always popular but they need a deposit in the very near future.

April 2006

April 2006: Courts 5-8 resurfaced. Done and dusted... well with sand (and lots of it!). Worth waiting for; the courts look great although, a little slow at the moment but you can bet they'll soon become the preferred courts to play on.
 

April 2006: P.S. Thanks for using the green recycling bin.
Les Barry writes... Over the last few months a lot of work has gone on in the grounds. Finally the extensive pruning to the trees around the courts has got underway and I am sure you have noticed the difference. Courts 5-8 have been resurfaced. It may take a few weeks for them to settle in but I am sure after that they will make for a better playing surface. Very soon new nets are to be fitted. Also the floodlights to all courts have been re-lamped. All this has been achieved with the minimum of disruption and hopefully just in time for the good weather and a successful summer season.

April 2006: What do Admin do then..?
Sheila Waller writes... Well, the Admin team are trying to gradually revamp the clubhouse.  To start with, the bar lounge extractor fan has been removed, the ceiling repaired and painted and new lights fitted to replace the nicotine stained ones.  We now have a fresh clean look.  A new television and stand have been purchased for the lounge and a new aerial installed.  The lounge is due to be redecorated and new vertical blinds fitted in an effort to enhance the appearance of the clubhouse.  Various electrical and other work is being undertaken and although not always noticeable it is nevertheless a necessity.  However, no matter what we do, the question of storage facilities in the clubhouse has to be solved and this we are actively looking into.  Our ultimate aim is for our playing facilities and the clubhouse to compliment each other.

April 2006: Chelmsford Junior Tennis League 2006. Junior teams are already in action for this year's league competitions.  Cranston Park have entries in all age groups and we wish each team every success in this year's competition.

April 2006: Interested in improving your tennis? Group coaching is now available for all members, £25 for a 10 week course.  Why not give it a go? For more information please contact Neil Twitchett for evening courses or for daytime courses Neil Walker.