You will have seen the opinion survey landing in your email inbox. 10 questions requiring just a few minutes of your time to complete.  

You will have seen the opinion survey landing in your email inbox.  10 questions requiring just a few minutes of your time to complete.  Please do it, including a few sentences to accompany your ratings.  We would love to hear from as close to everyone as possible.

We will review all the responses and report back to you on the results in due course.

We won’t put a deadline on it just yet - let’s see how rapid the response rate is.

Club Code of Conduct

We have updated our Code of Conduct.  It can be found here on the club website.

Most of you were probably unaware - or had forgotten - that we have a Code of Conduct.  It’s the sort of thing that gets put on a shelf to gather dust but, in fact, it’s actually a useful list of the club’s do’s and don’ts to be found in one place.

Although it may not be this Summer’s most popular reading material spotted poolside, it's worth a quick read. And it’s only 3 pages.

The second page comprises the Tennis Court Etiquette for the club.  We’ve now included a section in here regarding Spectators.  

This season’s National League matches attracted a couple of hundred people watching, as did Finals Day, and everyone joined in with their vocal support and encouragement.  Which is fantastic.  The NL competitors will be used to that sort of environment; our club finalists won’t be.  So, while refreshing the Code of Conduct, we thought for completeness on etiquette we ought to add this section.

Tennis

The Rebo Wall has been delivered and they’re coming back shortly to do the installation so we’re ready to go with it next week.

Coming soon is a Club Handicap Tournament to be launched in October.  Details dropping shortly.

We’ve got the National League final in Bournemouth on the weekend of 8th - 10th September, at The West Hants Club.  The pinnacle of the LTA’s club league system and we’re in the finals weekend for the top 8 clubs in the country!  See the ‘Spotlight on’ item below for a more in-depth look at who will be playing for us.  We will be taking some travelling fans - everyone welcome - but, for those unable to be there, matches will also be streamed live on the Tennis Channel.

Looking (much) further ahead, a number of you are already asking about the date for next year’s Club Finals Day, to protect the day in their calendar.  Saturday 22nd June:  commit to it now!

Finally, do you remember that there was a film crew at the club around this time last year?  Well we can now reveal all.  We were a location setting for the new Amazon Prime tennis drama series Fifteen-Love starring Aidan Turner.  Unfortunately it’s a case of blink and you’ll miss us, but we have made it to the silver screen!

Squash and Racketball

The new season is imminent.  Time to get going again if you’ve not been playing much over the Summer, or ramp things up a notch if you’ve just kept your game ticking over.

The ever popular start-of-season Squash Fun Evening will be on Friday 22nd September.  All standards are welcome, with participants split into graded groups for round-robin games.  Look out for the email from Richard Carr and Gill Trimmer.

For the more serious minded, there are three local tournaments scheduled for the start of the season and it would be great to have a strong Berko contingent involved:  the Tring 3 Counties Masters Open 8th - 10th September; the South of England Masters at Nuffield St Albans 29th September - 1st October; and the Herts County Closed 6th - 8th October venue tba (usually Radlett).  Details can be found on the Herts squash website www.hertssquash.co.uk.

Social

The return of Quiz Night on 20th September! Details to follow soon...

Plus the Rugby World Cup starts in just over 3 weeks, and we’ll be showing all the key matches on our big screen.

Club Open Day

The second of our two annual Open Days will be on Sunday 24th September.

Do you know anyone who may be interested in joining?  Someone who could be tempted to return to tennis/squash/racketball, or to give it a go as a beginner, and enjoy the social camaraderie of our club?

Suggest they pop down and we’ll show them around and they can ‘try before they buy’:  courts and equipment will be available for them.

Spotlight on… our National League tennis team

The format is the same as most club matches:  4 singles matches followed by 2 doubles matches; generally, but not necessarily, the same 4 players pairing up for the doubles.

We have fielded a pool of just 7 players to get to the finals, and we hope to take them all for the trip to Bournemouth.  With back-to-back matches on Friday and Saturday, plus Sunday if we make it through to the grand final, we need to have cover for injuries and fatigue.

So, who are our Magnificent Seven?  Who’s Steve McQueen and who’s Scamper the dog?  (Actually, that’s The Secret Seven, which is something else altogether, but you get the drift).

1. Felix Gill.  Felix is based out of the Edgbaston Priory Club in Birmingham and is embarking on his pro career at around 400 in the world and playing on the Futures Tour and Challenger Tour.  He made the 2nd round of the Wimbledon men’s doubles last year.  He has a tournament in Madrid culminating on the weekend of the NL finals.  Felix, sorry, but we hope you’re out and home by then.
2. Pat Brady.  Pat is 18 and from Dartford, 92 in the junior rankings and now starting out as a pro, training at the national tennis centre in Roehampton.
3. Neil Pauffley.  Neil is the Yul Brynner of the team.  Which refers to his age rather than his hairline.  He is a former pro who won 5 Futures titles but is now coaching full time at the NTC.
4. Josh Sapwell.  That’s our guy!  Josh started out at Goslings and by 14 was world number 1 in his age group, winning the nationals (against Kyle Edmund), the European champs, and the Orange Bowl (against Borna Coric, currently world number 15).  Unfortunately, Josh then suffered a series of recurring shoulder injuries over the next few years and had to give up his dream of becoming a pro player.  Turning to coaching, he initially came to Berkhamsted as a hitting partner with Joel (see below) and then as one of our full time coaches.
5. Josh Rose.  Josh is based out of the Townsend and Batchwood clubs in St Albans.  He has a number of connections with our club, coaching here on occasions and having been coached in the past by Tyrell and Steve.  He now has a career outside of tennis but still plays to a very high level.
6. Joel Pierleoni.  Great to see you back here Joel!  Joel started out as one of our juniors at the age of 4 or 5, originally with Chris as his coach, then with Tyrell.  He was world top 150 as a junior but the Covid pandemic blighted his start as a pro after leaving school.  Joel is now focusing on the doubles circuit, training with Ken Skupski (3x grand slam doubles QF) in Liverpool and playing on the Futures Tour.
7. Connor Brady.  Connor is 16 and the younger brother of Pat.  He stepped in for us at the playoffs and did brilliantly.

Good luck guys!

That’s all for now, until next time.  Get ready for a busy September!

Club Council

(John Shaw, Phil Trimmer, Michael Beavis, Tracey Mackey, Mark Shattock, Matt Markwort)