All hands on deck! The Belfast & District mixed leagues, evergreen leagues and junior leagues have begun. With 12 junior teams of 4, 8 mixed league teams of 8 and 3 ladies evergreen teams of 4 plus lots of reserves ………….. Well, I’ll let you do the maths. We have well over 100 members playing in league matches for Downshire this season. It’s worth thinking about. We have more teams entered in both the mixed and junior leagues than any other club. What a fantastic achievement! Maybe we should give ourselves a pat on the back.

 

Good luck to all the teams! I look forward to congratulating some league winners before the summer holidays begin. Anyone with time to spare any weekday evening or at weekends could do a lot worse than call in to the club to support our teams. You’ll see some great tennis and enjoy the spirit of Downshire or at least a cup of tea or coffee.

 

On the subject of winners, I had the pleasure of handing the winning prizes to the Red Bull team, captained by Robbie Sergeant, who recently triumphed in the finals of the Formula One tournament. Robbie was ably assisted by Vanessa Magowan, Nick Mills, Andy (aka Handy) Boyd, Candice Winter and a certain up-and-coming young talent by the name of Kumiko Mitchell! The finals night was good fun for spectators and maybe slightly less fun for the losers, but you can’t win ‘em all.

 

Sincere thanks to chief organiser Patrick Knowles on behalf of all those (12 teams of 6, plus reserves ………. Just do the maths!) who played in the tournament. Only Patrick knows how much time and energy he expended in ensuring that Formula One was yet again a resounding success. But we all saw how smoothly the tournament ran over the last couple of months and appreciate that that is all down to Patrick’s skill, dedication and, of course, lots of patience.

 

The standard of play throughout Formula One was very high, thanks in no small part to the involvement of so many of the club’s top players. It was great that Formula One involved players from across the broad spectrum of our mixed league teams from A to H. Roll on the next tournament in the autumn.

 

Due to junior league matches, the Spring Tournament had to be moved from Saturday 24th to Sunday 25th April. Despite this disruption, there was a good turnout and once again Patrick Knowles guided us through a very nice afternoon’s fun and competition. The winners were Alison Young and John Foster and the runners-up Terry Patton and Kumiko Mitchell.

 

Meanwhile, club development continues to move forward. We are all acutely aware of the need for extra courts, particularly at this time of year. Our application for planning permission for the Old Coach Road site is still with the planners and a positive decision should hopefully be forthcoming before the end of the year. In the meantime, other options are still being explored. Those include the possibility of extra courts at the Village Centre and at Lisnagarvey Hockey Club. (By the way, a public meeting, to which anyone from the community is invited, is to be held at the Village Centre on Wednesday 12th May to gauge local opinion on the possible utilisation of available land adjacent to the Village Centre and Downshire Primary School.) The hope is that we will have more than one positive outcome from all our discussions and negotiations from which to choose the best option for the future of the club. More information will be made available as progress is made.

 

And staying on the topic of development, I would urge all members needing a lift or a bit of encouragement to come along on Saturday morning just to see the hordes of youngsters having lots of fun learning how to play the game we love so much. If our future as a club depends on youngsters coming through, as we know it does, then surely the future of Downshire can only be good. Thank you to coaches Stuart McQuitty, Charlie Marks and Adam Boyle as well as all the junior helpers for making that happen. Thanks also to Barry & Geraldine McKeown for pick-pocketing the unsuspecting parents and offering refreshments in the clubhouse.

 

Last but not least……..If it’s not yet in your diary, Captain’s Day is Saturday 19th June 2010. Details to follow shortly.

Chris Mitchell
Club Captain