ALTHOUGH I WAS too young to hold a full-sized tennis racquet properly, I’d bash around on the grass court we had at home. No coaching, no lessons. It was still the era of ‘Right, kids off, the adults are coming on’. The tennis court was also the high jump section of my Olympics course. Not the net, as you may be thinking, but two fold-up chairs, standing all of 2 ft 6 in. in old money, with a bamboo cane stretched between them. We had a lot of bamboo, so no outsourcing needed. There was no raising of the bar, nor breaking of records. You either jumped 2 ft 6 in. or you didn’t. No judges or umpires needed. That isn’t to say there wasn’t the odd difference of opinion.

Running a mini-Olympics from the age of five onwards took more than a little organising. I could usually round up half a dozen willing, or unwilling, participants and persuade them to have numbers pinned to their shirts, T-shirts or whatever. Again, this was no haphazard operation. I meticulously drew numbers on sheets of A4 paper with AAA on it for Amateur Athletics Association and made the competitors wear them both front and back. The chief pinner-onner of numbers, my mother, would officiate at a distance. There was no professionalism or lack of dress code in my Games.

Apart from the high jump, there was the relay (if there weren’t enough competitors you had to run twice or even swap teams), the sprint, the long jump, putting and running. The running didn’t have a particular distance as I recall.

Despite our garden having a hidden stream that ran behind some giant cedar trees there were no water sports. Water is like a magnet to kids and although I often went there looking for adventures (as you do), the stream was too narrow for even a makeshift vessel and too shallow to swim in. So it never made it into the Games.

And then there was the tennis. This was the most difficult to organise as not only did the scoring confuse the other kids, and me to an extent, but the word ‘deuce’ always made everyone shriek because it sounded the same as ‘juice.’ Ah, the simplicity of youthful humour. In all these endeavours I was assisted by Old Charlie, our gardener who, unbeknown to him, doubled as my groundsman for the Olympics. I doubt that he was a great age, he just stooped a little, wore a cheesecutter cap and didn’t kick up too much when I jumped in his symmetrical piles of dead leaves, but he was ‘Old Charlie’ simply because our next gardener was also called Charlie and I suspect that he was marginally younger.

I’d trail round after Young Charlie; for kids, anyone that looks as if they’re doing something interesting and anyone in the dead leaf, wriggly worm, odd frog and bonfire trade was a natural magnet. Once some chums along the avenue were due to have a brace of Scottish cousins delivered to them for a period. There was much discussion between myself and Charlie as to whether they would look disarmingly different to us and indeed, if they spoke a similar language. This childlike train of conversation spilled over into an earnest conversation about the distance from Scotland to Walton-on-Thames. At such a tender, unworldly age, my estimate when asked to make one was 20 miles. I did believe for a while that everywhere was 20 miles from Walton, which would have been convenient for holidays, but would have made the world a much smaller and more densely populated place. My guess made Charlie roar with derisive laughter. Now as all us kids know, we don’t like being laughed at, we like to be taken seriously, so I took the only course open to me and burst into tears. Normally I would have wandered off, licked my wounds and possibly come back for a second guess having consulted my globe atlas, but somewhere behind one of the windows the scenario had been observed.

My father later demanded to know the facts. ‘Why were you crying earlier?’

It was easiest to tell the truth. ‘Charlie asked me how many miles it was from Scotland and I guessed incorrectly.’

‘Now tell me the truth.’

‘That is the truth.’ I couldn’t have made up a story that was any truer.

‘Tell me the truth.’

I began to wonder if I was lying without realising it. No, it was what happened. I was sent to my bedroom to think about what I’d said and to revise my answer. Life is damned unfair when you’re a kid. Or at least it was then. I thought about making up some other story, but wasn’t sure that anything I could create could beat the truth.

The episode passed into history and only took on a new meaning many years later when Charlie appeared in the local paper for making what we’d now refer to as ‘inappropriate advances’ to children at a local park. All became clear. Had my father possibly heard a vague rumour that our gardener may be ‘slightly strange’ as he would have termed it and was keeping a weather eye out for anything untoward? These days, with young people being exposed to virtually everything via all aspects of the media, parents would sit down to explain gently and sensibly. But years ago, the social interaction between adults and children was nowhere near as close. Since then I have been incensed if I’ve been subjected to any kind of injustice.

I played tennis regularly at school, but although the Old Wokingians continued to trot out in their dotage to play soccer, there was no post-school tennis for those who were decanted year in, year out into the world beyond. Nevertheless I wielded diverse styles and makes of racquets over the years against many an opponent on a variety of surfaces, entered the odd tournament and thought I was more proficient than I was.

When I lived in St George’s Hill, Cliff Richard was in the next road. We started hitting a few balls at the tennis club from around 1980. In 1983 Cliff’s first pro-celebrity tennis tournament kicked off what was to become twenty-five years of volleys, smashes and drop-shots in the name of improving the lives and sporting opportunities of hundreds and hundreds of young players. The amateurs for the initial outing were Cliff, Hank Marvin, Trevor Eve and me. Trevor distinguished himself on court as he did on the stage, winning the debut event with Ann Hobbs. Of course, he was never asked back.

My serving style needed a bit of fine honing at the time, but there was no call for the gales of laughter. I thought they were laughing at Hank’s humour, but it was my serve. Cheek. I could hear Cliff’s mother remonstrating with a section of the crowd on my behalf. It seems I lifted my right leg up as I served and it looked … well … let’s just say it didn’t look butch.

Terry Wogan, Mike Yarwood and Hank wielded the racquets at the second tournament, held like the first one at the Brighton Conference Centre, and in 1985 Shakin’ Stevens and Annabel Croft, Cliff and Sarah Gomer, Hank Marvin and Virginia Wade, and Ann Hobbs and I showed the audience a thing or two. Cliff and I sang a song or two, during which I didn’t lift my leg once. What were the audience laughing at, then?

The following year saw the return of Hank B. Marvin, clearly desperate for a trophy, battling it out against such tennis giants as Ronnie Corbett and Peter Cook and an athlete who could give Hank a run for his money over 1,500 metres, Sebastian Coe. In non-playing capacity I trundled off to the 1987 Tennis Ball in aid of Young Tennis Players of Great Britain. At least I qualified in one of those departments: I was British. Later in the same week Cliff’s office flew me up to Manchester to front his ‘Search for a Star’ day with Sue Barker. We had great fun among 200 enthusiastic kids with fearless forehands and sizzling serves. The result of this day was to lead to the lad setting up his own tennis foundation. The annual tournament raised some £40,000 for the LTA, although fear of my increasing prowess on court led to me doing the commentary instead of posing in my shorts and giving verbal abuse to that year’s celebrity players, Elton John, Emlyn Hughes and Mike Yarwood.

On several occasions I presented the Radio One breakfast show from Wimbledon, catching the early morning atmosphere with players knocking up, tons of strawberries making their presence felt and the resident hawk circling Centre Court to put the wind up any disruptive pigeons. One year, following a barbecue at Cliff’s with Sue Barker, I persuaded her to come and present the show with me as she had the knowledge and was still Britain’s number one at that time. I sidestepped her self-effacing moment, knowing she’d be fine. She’s become not only a fixture at Wimbledon, but a great TV presenter, and to many the face and voice of tennis. Maybe I should have been an agent.

The 1988 line-up at Brighton for Cliff’s tournament comprised Cliff and Ann Hobbs, me and Virginia Wade, Aled Jones and Julie Mullins, and Jimmy Tarbuck and Annabel Croft. We were all wired up with microphones to catch any pithy or witty epigrams that might fall from our perspiration-flecked lips, but Cliff’s kept crackling, breaking up and producing some ghastly feedback. The crowd found it amusing. So did Jimmy Tarbuck, coming out with the lightning line, ‘I don’t what you lot are laughing about, that’s his new single.’ At the end of our match with Aled Jones, I jumped the net. Aled followed suit. Then Virginia. I wonder if we’d all leap it so convincingly now? As you may have guessed I carried my partner, with her lack of experience, to an astounding victory. Silverware was ours.

At the end of the evening there was Cliff’s usual festive serenading, one musically astute reviewer later commenting, ‘Cliff asked Mike to join him in singing “Silent Night”. This sounded really good. Much better than the same version sung by Bros.’ I hope they got seats where they could hear properly the following year.

Clearly spurred on by my victory with my short-term doubles partner in 1988, I took another trophy two years later. I say ‘short-term’ but must emphasise that that was purely Virginia’s decision. ‘Forget Jeremy Bates,’ I pleaded, ‘we could make a go of this tennis thing. We make a good team. I distract the opposition with some lamentable shots and you put the winners away.’ It made sense to me. Anyway, this second triumph occurred in the summer of 1990 at Marlborough College. It was the illustriously named Joan Hunter Dunn Tennis Tournament, organised by the Betjeman Society and its founder, Philippa Davies. The venue had been chosen as JB had been a schoolboy there, while Joan Hunter Dunn had been his muse for the poem ‘A Subaltern’s Love-Song’. It was a jolly day, with the chaps clad in blazers and boaters and the ladies in ’20s dresses and the like. I turned up in my MG TF and proceeded, quoting Betjeman, to start ‘whizzing them over the net with the strength of five’. In the afterglow of another fleeting moment on the podium of my mind, we lounged in the old cricket pavilion, drank tea and listened to some ’30s Wimbledon tennis commentaries. No silverware this time, the prize being a rather decent racquet and a certificate signed by Miss J. Hunter Dunn herself.

I had a good-quality court when I lived at The Aldermoor, which usually had somebody playing on it. Errol Brown came to play one day, taking to the court in fashionable long trousers, a beautifully tailored shirt and a rather exotic-looking fedora. I wasn’t sure how this would work in actual play, but Errol seemed to cope and effortlessly straddled the gap between tramline and catwalk. Jona Lewie was also on court, stopping balls rather than cavalry and giving a reasonable impression of a solid player. Who knows who won? Who cared? We had a jolly time and a feed at the local pub, the Royal Oak, was the post-match carrot. Now many’s the time I’d been in that pub and heard the stentorian Gallic tones of Jacques the landlord, exclaiming, ‘Oh, you ’ave meessed ’im again, your namesake, ’e was in yesterday.’ The ‘’im’ in question was Oliver Reed, who lived in the next village. Not exactly my namesake of course, with our Christian names being entirely different and our surnames being spelled differently, but that didn’t deter Jacques. This evening, however, was different. Oliver and his wife and a couple of friends were also booked in for dinner. With only one table separating us (a golden wedding anniversary) we must surely fall into conversation and become the best of friends. Over a modest starter, Errol, Jona and I fell to talking about the media attention Oliver received and that most of it was probably exaggerated and unjust. Within two minutes of arriving he proved it wasn’t. Returning from a quick trip to the gents, an old boy in blazer and tie on the next table turned to him and said, ‘You’re Oliver Reed, aren’t you?’

The actor pushed his sleeve up and shoved his fist into the chap’s face. ‘What if I am? Want to make something of it?’

If I were a betting man I’d say that the chap didn’t want to make anything of it. Nevertheless he’d probably done his bit during the war and didn’t want to lose face. ‘Think you’re clever, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said Oliver, removing the flower from the guy’s buttonhole and eating it.

‘Oh, think you’re a big man, do you?’

In retrospect I’m sure it was more of a statement than a question, but it was a gift to Oliver Reed. He unzipped his trousers and slapped his manhood on the table, declaring, ‘Yes I do.’

As they say of bank robberies, it all happened so quickly. That being so, we felt that we should intervene at this point, so Errol and I rather cautiously got to our feet, without actually having discussed a plan of action. Before I could wrestle Oliver to the floor and force him to apologise (yeah, right) he’d zipped himself up again, just as Jacques came round the corner and grabbed him playfully. I’m never sure whether anyone ever grabbed Oliver Reed ‘playfully’, but at least he sat down … and so did we. I wisely decided against going over and attempting to become bosom buddies with my ‘namesake’, for many reasons. Mostly because he might have punched my lights out.

The Federation Cup, the premier international women’s tennis event, hadn’t been to Britain since 1977, so it was quite a big deal when it was staged at Nottingham in 1991. I headed up there for a few days, as tennis and the Radio One Roadshow came together for the tournament, initially attending the official reception with British players Sam Smith, Monique Javer and Clare Wood. One of my duties was hosting the fantastic children’s day, with tennis kids of all nationalities integrating through tennis. Tennis World revealed that Cliff and I would be on court to ‘capture the excitement’ of the first day. Not ‘provide the excitement’ you’ll have noted, just capture it. They did us proud in the alliteration stakes with the headline ‘Royalty, Read and the Radio One Roadshow’.

All the great female players, such as Monica Seles, Steffi Graf and Jennifer Capriati, were there, and security was high due to the presence of the Princess of Wales, but that didn’t stop Smiley Miley. Following a hit on court, I returned in time for the radio show to see my MG some 80 feet in the air on the platform of a crane. I have no idea how he got it up there or how much it cost. I reasoned that at least I wouldn’t get a parking ticket, but I have to admit that it was a trifle embarrassing to keep glancing up and seeing my car in the clouds. Even so, Diana thought it was a scream. I’ve often wondered why Smiley didn’t latch on to this royal approval and use ‘By Appointment’. An opportunity missed.

The Princess of Wales was also the guest of honour at a charity tournament in aid of the British Deaf Association, staged at the David Lloyd club at Raynes Park. Another opportunity to play with some of the greats. I partnered the delightful Peter Fleming, today a TV commentator but underused and underrated in that role. He’d won countless doubles championships with John McEnroe and now he was saddled with me. I knew the plan: ‘Yours, Peter … Yours again … Yours, Peter … You, partner.’ A familiar but successful pattern. On this was a formidable partnership built, to face the might of Michael Chang, Stefan Edberg et al.

If the opposition was tough, the umpires, in the shape of Jeffery Archer and Bruce Forsyth, were even tougher. Frustrated by their inexplicable decisions, I proffered my racquet to Diana at one point, but obviously not being dressed for the occasion, she declined. Not scared of former Wimbledon Champions, surely, Ma’am?

There was also an art auction in aid of the charity and I’d fallen in love with one of the paintings. During the interval I was studying the art when an intrigued Diana came over. ‘Have you bought anything?’

I nodded. ‘Guess which one.’

She went through most of the works before pointing at a picture of two ladies in Edwardian dress playing tennis at twilight by an old country house. ‘Not that one?’

‘That’s the one. Don’t you like it?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Good, then you won’t be fighting me for it.’

‘Absolutely not.’ She looked at the ground and laughed. I wasn’t certain whether she was scoffing at my taste or the painting. Probably both. One scoff fits all.

On another occasion my friend Charles Haswell and I had been playing with some former professionals at the Chelsea Harbour Club when Diana appeared from the pool, greeting us with a beaming smile and possibly a little envy that we’d been playing tennis with a handful of veteran champions. Her exuberance was such that we hugged and I gave her a kiss. It seemed the natural thing to do. I didn’t notice, but Charles pointed out that she blushed rather deeply. An hour later I had a phone call from Ken Wharfe, Diana’s protection officer.

‘What have you been up to, Read?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t give me that. The Princess came in here looking rather flushed a while ago and was full of it. Apparently you kissed her.’

‘Ah, yes … not a good thing to do?’

‘On the contrary, she seemed very happy.’

There seemed to be so many tennis tournaments played for good causes in the ’90s. One such, in 1992, was at the old Vanderbilt Club, now buried under the Westfield shopping centre at Shepherd’s Bush. In the name of Help Hammer Cancer, with fellow DJs David Hamilton and Ed Stewart alongside equally short-shorted television presenters Martyn Lewis and Jonathan Dimbleby, we once again took to the court. Our old pal George Layton took the honours that day, holding the not insignificant trophy triumphantly over his head.

Also in 1992 Cliff’s annual tennis tournament celebrated its tenth staging by moving to the bigger National Indoor Arena at Birmingham, where Frank Bruno and Roy Castle joined us on court. Roy, Cliff, Tim Rice and I forced some of our own unique brand of rock & roll on the 14,000 or so on whom we’d bolted the doors. What a sound: two guitars, one trumpet, one gyrating Mick Jagger tribute act (T. Rice) and three voices. A rare and intriguing combination. Michael Ball later showed us how it should be done. At Birmingham, the format began to change to accommodate more players, so I never had a clue who was winning or losing. The tournament was always held a week before Christmas so everyone was in the festive mood. We mixed around, played it for laughs and often worked in teams, popping on court for a game or two and then off again. Slightly more Davis Cup. No, more like the Bette Davis Cup. As usual the Salvation Army band would play, march and get everyone into the spiritual side of the season and Cliff would follow with a hit or two and a carol or three. Following ‘Mistletoe and Wine’, I joined him for ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’ and Brian Conley made it a trio as we launched into ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’.

Maybe it was the way we harmonised on ‘Dream’, maybe it was our ferocious cross-court backhands, or more realistically maybe nobody else was available, but Cliff and I were invited to play at Eastbourne. No, not on the beach, but, as Alf Garnett might have said, ‘Yer actual Eastbourne.’ For the top women players, this was and remains the tournament leading up to Wimbledon. With temperatures up in the high seventies, Cliff and I joined former England footballer Colin ‘Nijinsky’ Bell, John Inverdale and Jeff Wayne, of War of the Worlds fame, to play on the main court with some of the planet’s greatest. I’d played against Jeff in a tournament before and he was good. A one-time captain of Hertfordshire who used to play on the circuit in the States, he was virtually a professional, but all the while there’s a racquet in one’s hand, there’s hope. Under the eye of the Duchess of Gloucester, seen studiously taking notes of my unorthodox but cavalier style, we strode into the arena. I eyed the opposition, which included Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Nathalie Tauziat. I partnered the talented South African number one, Amanda Coetzer, but fell foul of Jana Novotná, who was umpiring. I climbed the chair to remonstrate with her over some seriously questionable line calls, but she was having none of it and put me firmly in my place, wherever that was. Clearly not on court. That worthy and austere organ the Eastbourne Gazette deemed this curtain raiser to the serious tennis worthy of the whole front page. ‘The first game, between Sir Cliff and Arantxa against Mike and Amanda, was tremendous entertainment and was enhanced by reigning champion Jana Novotná’s umpiring.’ It says much for the match when the highlight appears to be the umpiring.

By the late ’90s Cliff’s festive tennis season had extended to a fundraising evening for his foundation at Hampton Court. What a setting, especially at Christmas. In 1990 I performed my regular ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, a rabble-rousing, ice-breaking vocal start to the evening, with everyone, including the Duchess of York, taking part. In 2002 the Russian girls for whom I was producing and writing (see Chapter 10) performed at Hampton Court, singing ‘Silent Night’ in their own language to an enthusiastic audience that once again included the Duchess of York, alongside William Hague and Cherie Blair. The Hampton Court bash was always atmospheric, with the lighted torches, the lone piper, the Tudor kitchens and of course, the history. One year I performed in the Great Hall with Gordon Giltrap. He played ‘Greensleeves’, over which I recited ‘Winter’ from Love’s Labour’s Lost, as both Henry VIII and Shakespeare performed in the Great Hall. At different times of course – Henry was the warm-up man, with the Bard getting the gig a few years later.

The previous year I collected the largest piece of tennis silverware I’d ever seen. Partnering Guillermo Vilas, one of the greatest-ever South American players, we won the Mulberry Classic at Hurlingham. ‘Guillermo,’ I said, ‘play your natural game. Don’t tighten up.’

‘What, you mean like I did when I won seven titles in a row, or when I was world number one alongside Björn Borg?’

‘Yes, you’ve got it. Let me call the shots.’

‘OK. Much like the time you were on court with me when I won the Australian, French and US Open titles.’

The boy was a quick learner. Rather decently he let me keep the trophy. ‘I’ve got cabinets full of them. You have it. You probably don’t have many.’ He was right. I staggered out to the car park looking like I’d won the biggest trophy in the world, only to find it wouldn’t fit in the boot. I kept it for a year and would have kept it forever but Mulberry insisted that I give it back. It was a Lord of the Rings situation, I didn’t want to let go.

In 2002 I brokered an unusual union at Cliff’s annual tournament. A year or two earlier, when we had been shooting the video for ‘November Night’, Cliff bemoaned the fact that he’d never met Roy Bennett and Sid Tepper, who had written ‘The Young Ones’, assuming (erroneously) that they’d passed on. An idea began to take shape. Again a few years earlier, I’d interviewed Roy for a book and knew that one of his ambitions had been to meet Cliff. He assumed that now it was too late and wouldn’t happen. As well as ‘The Young Ones’, these guys had written many songs that Cliff covered, including ‘When the Girl in Your Arms’ and ‘Travellin’ Light’. They’d also written for Frank Sinatra and penned over fifty songs for Elvis. So it was that in 2002 I flew Roy and his wife Ruth to London. On the day of the tennis tournament we travelled to Birmingham. The tennis over, Cliff took to the stage with his band, but before they could start playing, I walked on, unannounced.

‘What are you doing?’ Cliff mouthed. He might even have hissed a little, I can’t be sure.

‘Who loves “The Young Ones”?’ I asked the crowd, to a rousing cheer. ‘“Travellin’ Light”?’ Rousing cheer. I listed many Tepper and Bennett songs that Cliff had success with and then many Elvis classics they’d written. I told the respective tales of admiration and how both parties assumed that it was a moment that would never happen. To tumultuous applause from 12,000-plus fans, I brought Roy on stage. Cliff was truly shocked. They hugged like two old friends. A moment to take it all in, and then they launched straight into ‘The Young Ones’. Epic.

There have been countless pro-celebrity tournaments over the years. I’ve already mentioned many of the great women players I’ve been delighted to be on court with and I’m also so lucky to have played alongside the likes of Rod Laver, Roscoe Tanner, Ken Rosewall, John and David Lloyd, Frew McMillan, Roger Taylor, Jeremy Bates, Mansour Bahrami, Henri Leconte and Ilie Nastase. It was genuinely a privilege to be on court with such world-class players.

While living at Amberley, in the shadow of the glorious South Downs, I played extensively for Storrington, even spending a few years as club captain. Not, I suspect, through being an outstanding player, but more for standing still in the line of those press-ganged, while the wiser old owls took that regulation step backwards.

If I thought that my task was to swagger around the court with the word ‘captain’ emblazoned on my blazer, while fair maidens’ hearts skipped a beat, I was wrong. There were the obligatory meetings, usually about carpets, curtains and paper clips, awkward members to be counselled, arguments over court bookings to be sorted and teams to be selected. Selecting four players for my particular squad was tricky enough, but there were five men’s teams alone, who all had their regular share of problems: players crying off at the last minute, replacements to be found, opponents who were lost en route to a match and the unfathomable County League rules. These were enough to baffle the love-child of Euclid and Alan Turing (unlikely, I know, but it gets the point over). Many a time we’ve fallen foul of the County statute book. The opposition would scrutinise your team with more zeal than the cast of the Book of Judges from the Old Testament. ‘Didn’t we play against you in the second team a few weeks ago? Play for both, do you?’ ‘Not sure you’re allowed to play down a league on the second Sunday after Epiphany.’ ‘Are you new to the club? Not seen you before.’ The implication being that we might be fielding a ringer.

Let me slice open the cake for an example. Oh, on the subject of cake, the home team was duty bound to provide tea. That hopeless, haphazard, disorganised member of the human race known as a ‘bloke’ is never shown up in a more marked manner than in the area of tennis teas. Here’s the scenario. It’s a home game, ergo we provide the tea. With exceptional and uncanny male organisation we each turn up with mini chocolate rolls and a lump of cheddar.

‘I thought you were getting the bread.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘Who’s brought butter?’

Silence while we all look accusingly at each other.

‘Milk?’

We all stare out of the window.

‘Ham?’

Something has caught our eye through the window. It’s the first team ladies approaching the pavilion laden with enough home-made food to satisfy Billy Bunter and the whole of the Remove at Greyfriars School.

Possibly, just possibly, food envy is pushed to the back of our minds during the battle for league points with the opposition, but as soon as the day is won (or lost) we begin to rue the fact all over again that we are Men. We may be able to smash a ball over the net in quasi-macho manner (or should that be Quasimodo manner?) but as hunter-gatherers and providers we are bottom of the league. As the ladies unveil quiches, cakes, delicate sandwiches, salads and pasta our opponents make their excuses and leave. They probably have plans to stop en route somewhere. Anywhere that serves anything other than cheddar and mini-rolls. If we look pathetic enough, the ladies may lend us a drop of their semi-skimmed to make our tea a marginally more acceptable colour.

I got diverted by cake. I was about to regale you with an actual case of scrutiny and how it can lead one into deep water.

We are playing a team further east than us. Not as far as Rye and not as close as Worthing. That day we are playing as the second four. With a player dropping out at the last minute, I call on a first-team player, who obliges. On arrival, he is immediately subjected to the gimlet-eyed appraisal of one of the opposition.

‘I’ve played against you before.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yes I have. Aren’t you in the first team?

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. You’ve played down once before, I remember. You can’t do that twice in a season or we can claim the match by default.’

Ben has been rumbled. This could be a wasted journey.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Ben.’

‘Ben what?’

Here another of our team rushes to Ben’s aid. ‘Ben Maddison.’

‘Maddison? But you’re a Maddison, you’re Dave Maddison, I’ve played against you many times.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is he a relation?’

‘Not really.’

‘Not really? He either is or he isn’t.’

It’s getting tricky for Dave. He was only trying to help and now he’s in the dock. ‘He isn’t.’

‘That’s a coincidence, two Maddisons.’

Dave clutches at a straw that is blocked at both ends. ‘He’s Madison, with one D.’

The unlikely farrago hangs in the air.

‘Come on,’ says their skipper, ‘we’re already fifteen minutes late starting.’ I make a mental note to remember when we sign the score sheet at the end of the match to write Ben’s name as Madison, with one D. It’s not easy being the captain.

Mention must be made of our fourth team member that day, Tony James. A former Commonwealth athlete, when he was ten stones lighter of course, an exceptionally gifted artist and a collector of vintage cars. The trick with the cars, he says, is to have so many that your wife never knows when you’ve bought another. He was my on-court partner and a decent player, despite never knowing the score. His random idea of what the score might be baffled many an opponent as well as me, but he was my pal and if he thought we’d won the game he must be right. I’m sure we got quite a few points that way. I called him Rhino. When he charged the net, even the Saracens First XV would have taken cover, and the steam from his nostrils brought to mind an A4 4-6-2 locomotive bound for Glasgow on a frosty November morning.

It was in a delightful shop in Moreton-in-Marsh that I spotted it: a realistic model rhino. The sort you’d buy for a farm set if you were breeding rhinos. I bought five, the final destination of the odd-toed ungulates already firmly in my mind. They nestled in my tennis bag until teatime. We were playing a Sussex County match away: slap-up feed guaranteed. The timing was perfect. As Rhino popped to the loo the sandwiches and cakes emerged. The opposition gazed in wonder as I secreted five rhinoceroses among the cakes and sandwiches. I explained the gag. We could hardly contain ourselves. Rhino returned. This man is ultimately laid back, but he must notice them. He ate a sandwich, then another. He even moved one of the model rhinos to get to a cake. This was baffling. Another cake. More tea. Eventually he leaned over very, very casually, stretched out a laconic arm, picked up one of the rhinos, examined it, replaced it, turned to the opposing players and said at length, ‘That’s a really strange coincidence, because they call me Rhino.’

Before the groundsman takes the net down and I head off to the changing rooms, I must make a confession that may see me banned from any future matches. From 2005 until 2009, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I was presenting programmes at Frinton-on-Sea for the relaunched Radio London. Unsurprisingly, I played a lot of tennis at Frinton, one of the most delightful clubs in the country. Beautiful grass courts, fantastic location, lovely people and an incredible history. My biggest thrill on court at Frinton was playing in a doubles match with Mark Cox, former world number one, against former British number one Andrew Castle and Buster Mottram, once ranked fifteenth in the world. That array of talent makes you step up to the mark.

Well, that was nearly my biggest thrill. One wet evening after a strenuous indoor tennis session we were sitting in the bar discussing how exciting it must have been when it was only the second tournament to Wimbledon. Tales were told of the days when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, took the courts, when Winston Churchill smoked cigars at the bar and when King Zog of Albania and Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia visited the club. While we were talking about these great characters I felt words form unbidden on my lips. ‘They’ll also be talking about tonight for years to come.’

The gang looked at me as though I was mad. ‘What on earth will they say?’ someone ventured.

‘They’ll say, “Have you heard about the night they played naked tennis on the hallowed lawns of Frinton-on-Sea?”’

Accompanied by much shrieking, four of us disrobed and headed out on the moonless night with the rain driving in from the sea. We could hardly see to play so the assembled company couldn’t have seen much either. If indeed there was much to see … It was hilarious … and wet. I’d say we were soaked to the skin by the time we’d finished, but we were only in our skin. Very exhilarating and who could even guess at the score, but we did it. Word spread very quickly, especially as this was Frinton, the last bastion of gentility. The last place in Britain to get a pub, the last to get a fish and chip shop, and the first to get naked tennis. The papers carried the story, which even made the nationals and some magazines. I was asked to deny it. I couldn’t. The club got a local journalist (a good friend of mine) to write a piece for the local papers specifically saying that we’d made it up, that it was an urban myth. It wasn’t. People still ask me about it years later.