The Isle of Man boys eight and under tennis team competed in the Northern Counties County Cup in Sunderland recently.

Albany LTC’s Jenson Oram, Jamie Jelly and Sebastian Chadfield were joined by Castletown’s Zander Champion Clark in the Manx squad for the trip to the north east.

All did well playing both singles and doubles matches in their games against Cheshire (the eventual regional winners) plus Durham & Cleveland, Northumbria and Cumbria.

This reminds me of the first Isle of Man eight and under team to travel to the UK in 1984.

The players included Karen Faragher, Jane Miller, Clare Gibney, Jim Travers and Gary Brooks.

We flew to Manchester in one of the old Manx Airlines Shorts 360 - what an experience!

In later years, under-eights who travelled for this event included Michael Travers, JJ Moore, Lucy Kerr (nee Hamilton-Turner) and Paul Jones.

The juniors all learnt lot from those trips, as will this year’s team.

- This coming Thursday (May 7) sees the start of the Albany Chrystals Senior Open tournament with finals say on Sunday, May 10.

Prizes will be presented by James Allen on behalf of Chrystals.

Will any member willing to help in the kitchen with refreshments – particularly on finals day – please contact Jan Gaskill or me.

Homemade cakes would be very welcome.

- May I remind the parents at all Albany coaching sessions that they must sign in their child so that the club know how many children are on the premises in case of an emergency.

PAT SHARP

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