July 14th 2016

You Cannot be Serious! - Alan Gray

Alan Gray  - Tennis player and tennis official.  Talking about his life in the world of tennis and its stars.  Alan started as a junior competitor at Wimbledon, and has been a line judge and umpire there.  With a focus on Wimbledon, its famous and infamous visitors, Alan provides an interesting view of the world of tennis.

Sadly, this is not a talk by John McEnroe but Alan will have plenty of stories to share with us about his life at the net!

Review of the evening
Alan was a mine of information, full of stories of the characters of Wimbledon and altogether a very entertaining man. He told us about his history, history of Wimbledon, traditions, officials' uniforms and the odd joke thrown in - all tennis related! He predicts that over the next 20 years, all line judges will be phased out and technology will take over, with just an umpire to keep order.

Q - Why should you never fall in love with a tennis player?
A - Because Love meaning nothing!

He enjoyed our display of tennis memorabilia, competition entries and bowl of strawberries.

Competition: Anyone for Tennis? This was won by Sheila for her heart warming story about her crush on Roger Taylor, second, Patti with a photo of her husband playing tennis in 1949 and third Olwyn with her collection of memorabilia.