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From: The Racketeer 49, April 2003

Lethal Spin [13]

by Frank Raistrick

Partnerships
The first mixed team made a shaky start to the winter season with draws against Attenborough and East Bridgford, and a narrow defeat against Sutton-in-Ashfield, although a win against the dangerous Woodthorpe B offers hope.

The second team looks a fair bet for promotion from Division Four, with easy wins over Burton Joyce and Ilkeston. Grantham's 90-18 defeat of Burton Joyce sent warning signals. They can turn out very strong or very weak teams; the one that visited Mapperley Park being one of the former.

There seems to be a good team spirit in the Mapperley second string, and unlike the first team they seem able to field regular pairs, with Brad Payne and Diane Fieldhouse, and Andy Lusis and Anita Wood starring. My old mate John Towlson is also going strong. I first played against him at Calverton with his regular partner Maurice Galley - known as 'Mr Grumpy', but they were a formidable pair and should have been playing in Division One. It is a very big factor in a team's success to have regular partners who are compatible and fit in well together.

When I was at Mapperley, I was lucky to partner Fiona Sansom for a couple of seasons and we rarely lost. She was a small girl, but what a fighter! We hit It off straight away and fancied our chance against anybody. I also enjoyed playing with Shelagh. We played twice in the prestigious John Player tournament and weren't disgraced. I recall an occasion in club play when she went up for an easy smash. Being tall she was strong overhead, and swung hard, but the ball did not appear. Baffled, we searched for it and found it stuck in the triangle of her racket! How anybody could miss by that much, I don't know, but Shelagh managed it. It was a joy to play with the smiling, hard-hitting Lisa, and I revelled in the tactical battles of mixed tennis.

I had some great partners in the Men's team, but they never seemed to last long - I wonder why? The late lamented Eric Smith was great to play with, always full of praise for my good shots and ignoring the bad. My first partner was the scurrying Pat Darlaston, but he moved to partner Paul Levin when yet another brilliant player died too young - our captain, Chris Rose. Pat and Paul were supreme, the best pair of my time, and it would have been marvellous to see Jes and John or Duncan play against them. I enjoyed the adventure of playing with the eccentric Chris Taylor, and my last partner was the amiable Trevor Woolley, with whom we helped to win the Championship for the second team.

Moving up the scale a little, one thinks of great partnerships such as McEnroe and Fleming, Navratilova and Shriver, the two Woodies and Hoad and Rosewall. John Newcombe and Tony Roche were my idols - their training methods included spending the night before their Wimbledon Doubles Final in the fleshpots of the West End. It didn't seem to affect their ability, and they extracted great enjoyment from life, unlike some of the baseline robots of today.

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