In April a group of coaches took 12 of us lucky players to Goole Tennis Centre to practice on clay courts. By the end of the weekend everyone was extremely tired, experts on clay and very sunburnt. The first day of the weekend was 5 hours of training. It was mainly consisted of touch and slice drills in the boxes, which Tom T-P immediately took a shine to and was skidding around on the clay before most of us had got started. We then moved onto learning the techniques of clay court tennis and the coaching team had us playing at the baseline, changing our slice and topspin to suit the surface.

In the afternoon we moved on to matches, by that time the sun was well up in the sky and everyone was developing a healthy tan (or a lot of sunburn). By late afternoon everyone was dying for a shower and clean clothes so we set off back but only after Tom had made us do a supposedly short warm down around the nearby rugby field! !

Back at the hotel we all snatched a quick shower and change before we set off to Frankie and Bennies for a welcome meal. The next event was bowling where we all agreed to stick to tennis apart from Miles who fluked four strikes in a row due to a display of zigzag bowling.

The next day we woke up early and had a huge breakfast then on to Goole Tennis Centre. We arrived back at the courts for ten where we continued to get to grips with the surface in the morning and after lunch we had a Davis Cup tournament when Dan Sinclair’s team won and Kim and Higgy had a great match. The day was concluded with a series of awards being given out. Tom T-P was given a well-deserved ‘Rafa Award’ for being the best clay court player; Christopher Prince an award for the most improved player; Sam Higginbottom for the keenest player and Miles Murgett for being the flukiest bowler! It was a fantastic weekend with great enthusiasm from all the coaches and players.

A special thanks to the junior committee for subsidising the trip and to Rob, Tom, Natalie and Nick for coaching us in such a positive and effective way. Cheers!