CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON | WO HU CANG LONG
Goodwick Tennis Club 2-2 Milford Haven Tennis Club | Pembrokeshire Doubles League | 18-10-2020
By Tim Barrett
It would be a day of gossip and excuses.
Sunday 18th of October 2020.
One of hot drinks and quality baking. Of unlooked for beauty and full cream pleasure.
A day that, for Milford Tennis Club at least, would eventually become a moment to savour.
But, after the euphoria of the double over Lamphey, after the barely concealed astonishment at finding themselves top of the league, and despite all the optimistic talk in the weeks beforehand, early Sunday morning, dread, like oil from the Sea Empress, had begun to seep uncontrollably into the hearts and minds of the sea salty Milford club
And not just because the impending road trip would take them through the wild, lawless country that leads straight into the heart of the mythical badlands of Goodwick.
A fixture, and an away fixture at that, against Goodwick (along with Haverfordwest and Newport one of the three big boys of the Pembrokeshire tennis scene) was surely always destined to be that smack across the face with the cold wet flannel of tennis reality.
Wasn’t it?
Well, wasn't it?
Because, for the first time, Milford’s ‘av-a-knock-on-a-Monday-night friendly social members were coming up against a club boasting proper players.
You know the sort.
We all know the sort.
Mean and moody.
Bulging quadriceps.
Low body fat percentages.
Expensive kit.
Fast.
Very fast.
Full of top spin and ah fancy shootin’.
Still young.
Very young.
AND fully mobile.
Dear oh dear.
Milford Tennis Club’s big day out was simply bursting at the seams with the potential for a 4-0 pasting.
For the mutha’ of all humiliations.
At the seaside.
Up there in Goodwick.
The first sighting of the home team’s star performer, Peter Warren Lavis, did bugger all, frankly, to ease the anxiety. Even a blindfolded, catatonic nincompoop could see the boy was a top player. And that was just in the warm up. Skills honed in the cauldron of his old London club, apparently, according to his old man, Louis.
And a double-barrelled surname 'n all: always a sure indicator of tennis quality.
So then, already resigning themselves at that very early stage (the warm up) to the inevitable, the huge Milford travelling support (10 strong), along with club president Queenie Scale, took a deep, collective in breath and sat back on plastic chairs behind a bewitching selection of hot drinks and home baking that was making a pop-up table groan and creak. Like an ancient arthritic sea captain fumbling his way home in the dark after a night on the sauce.
If their brave on-court representatives, Gwyn Scale and Liz Moss, were going to go down fighting, their supporters were definitely going to numb their disappointment scoffing.
Warren Lavis was already oozing an irresistible confidence in his every movement, in his every shot selection and, backed up by the lankily effective Gary Strawbridge, started running away with the first set.
Time for one of Ruth Moss’s sausage rolls.
His serve was almost too fast for the naked eye.
And one of Queenie’s little jam tarts? Yeah, go on then.
After their heroics in the Lamphey double header, Moss and Scale just could not seem to get a foothold in the set.
Tea or coffee anyone?
Was it really too much to hope for another slipped disc?
On the Goodwick team.
A sprained ankle perhaps, or a sudden heavy cold?
Surely one of ‘em must have left the oven on at home.
6-3.
First set.
Oh for f...
Did we know that Goodwick have laid on sandwiches and everything in the club for afterwards?
Gwyn is giving away over 30 years here to this Peter what's-his-face. We can definitely use THAT as an excuse...
The gossip from an anonymous source (Stevey Summers) was that Newport Tennis Cub had secretly drafted in Haverfordwest’s quality second string players to represent THEIR club seeing as how their genuine members hadn’t fancied playing league one little bit. Now that they had seen the quality on show here in Goodwick, Milford’s members suddenly had every sympathy. Jus’ what the hell had they got themselves into?
Dear oh dear.
Things weren’t getting any better for Scale and Moss, either. Quickly dispatched in their first match, next up in the second was the pairing of the tasty Damian Downing (allegedly flown in from Perth, Australia) and the home team’s second ranked player, football legend Stevey Summers.
Not smooth like Warren Lavis, Summers is more your streetwise park player. Un-coached, but cunning, effective and, just as in his prime when he was a fabulous and elusive top quality centre forward for Goodwick United, full of intelligence and good movement; great to watch.
Great to watch even in a pair of shorts that were, perhaps, ill-advised...you know: tight, very tight, and colourful, very colourful; AND, according to close friend and advisor Mr Bernard Armstrong, shorts that made him look like 'a pimp.’
Armstrong, another genuine football legend, had strolled along from his Goodwick mansion to watch with wife Karen and, shamelessly flouting tennis etiquette, had given Milford Tennis Club some hope of a Moss Scale win by distracting Summers with a constant barrage of abuse: ‘carrying too much junk in the trunk there, Summers, boy,’ that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.
The Milford pair soon crashed one and one, with Summers especially inspired, it seems, by his watching girlfriend.
Two nil. And Milford Tennis Club was staring into that great tennis abyss, that deep black hole of hopes and dreams.
Yet, miraculously, it was precisely at this point, when all hope seemed lost, that, just as in the most clichéd of films, the world stopped turning, the clouds parted, and court two was dazzled by a shaft of ethereal light
Appropriate, because what was taking place there on that court at that time was something special, something very special indeed. A quiet, beautiful, unlooked for little moment that is destined to play forever on a loop in the mind’s eye of those lucky enough to have witnessed it.
Peter WS and Strawbridge, Gary, fresh and flushed from their annihilation of Scale and Moss, had strolled over to that court to face the Milford B pairing, understandably confident of a tennis spanking ditto. Even, therefore, during the horrors of their deepest, darkest magic mushroom trip, they could not possibly have imagined what was going to happen next.
No-one could have: the blighters looked good enough to push a Feds’ Nads’ combo all the way.
Yet somehow the nightmare they had just dished out with such style and verve, was about to be visited upon them
With brass knobs on.
Within ten minutes they were being unravelled.
Within thirty they were being dismantled.
By the end their fireworks had been utterly extinguished.
It was an astonishing sight.
And one that was captivating passers-by more used to seeing football and rugby here. They were drawn in, slightly bemused, slightly bashful, unsure, childlike as if approaching a street magician
Watching the Milford B pairing in action was like watching a tennis version of a wise old kung fu master and his talented protégé. Quiet. Understated. Joyful. No fuss. Nothing wasted. Two players going about their play with a delicious and mesmerising fluency, unhurried, in synch, fully absorbed, oh yeah: and with a serve that kicked like a bastard. Almost unreal. Evans and Son. The Hakin SAS. Bruce and Mathieu. This is what a lifetime of high level tennis talent and experience looks like when distilled into a perfect 60 minutes on court and passed on to the next generation. You simply could not take your eyes off of it, even for a second. Neither did you want to, as everything else faded out of focus into a silent background that did not matter at all.
As, it turns out, Downing and Summers had already been on the receiving end themselves: news only now filtering through that the Goodwick second string had managed to win just two games over two sets, with Summers shaking his head in disbelief.
PWS and GS managed only 3 against the Evans boys.
The result?
An unbelievable 6-1 6-2.
Even the Milford players and supporters hadn’t seen it coming: the Evans boys, must surely have been taking it easy on the Monday club nights, and, modest to a fault, it only now transpired, over post match tea and Portuguese tarts, that Evans Senior had dominated the legendary summer Rath Youth tournament in Milford run by Mike Lee way back when, and had then gone on to win the county title five times. Bloody hell! If he was this good today, giving his opponent 20 years, imagine, if that is possible (it’s not), what he was like in his prime then, long before yoga and Jo Wicks mobility sessions became essential in just about holding the Evans mortal coil together.
Tournament organiser, and Haverfordwest supremo, Louis Warren, was at the match watching his son and also (allegedly) spying on his club’s next opponents. Unfortunately, therefore, the Evans boys are no longer Milford’s big secret weapon. The good news is that Bruce and Mathieu are, incredible as it may seem, ‘only’ Milford’s B pairing. If Milford can get their A pair (one that includes an international footballer) fit and playing in the next fixture at the same time as the Evans boys then the county tennis scene could well be rocked to its very foundations. If not, then Queenie’s tarts, Ruth’s sausage rolls and Karen’s plain chocolate cherry and almond flapjacks are always guaranteed to ease the pain of any 4-0 drubbing.
However, on Sunday 18th October 2020, it didn’t really matter what team you supported. Nor did it matter about the future. What did matter was that moment. For any sports fan, it was simply a privilege, an unexpected treat that made the heart swell being able to witness tennis of that standard played just for the love of it, for the fun of it by two Pembrokeshire boys from Hakin, Bruce and Mathieu Evans, against quality opposition, on a public court near the sea, out of the blue with no fanfare, no hoo ha, far away from all the brash business and bright lights of professional sport.
The performance was the ultimate embodiment of the famous Chinese proverb, ‘Wo Hu Cang Long,’ ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,’ one which involves so many nuances of meaning
The proverb extols the virtues and wonder of finding talent in the unlikeliest of places, the most unexpected of places; it describes hidden or undiscovered talents that lie beneath the surface of an otherwise normal looking individual, performing wonderful things without any fanfare or fuss; it advises by implication never to underestimate anyone; it describes someone who keeps an amazing ability hidden, or hides their strength from others; and, by also referring to the undercurrents of emotion, passion, and secret desires that lie beneath the surface of polite society and civil behaviour, it provides the perfect metaphor for tennis.
'Er, something along those lines anyway...
Warren Lavis and Strawbridge beat Scale and Moss 6-3 6-1
Summers and Downing beat Scale and Moss 6-1 6-1
Evans and Son beat Summers and Downing 6-1 6-1
Evans and Son beat Strawbridge and Warren-Lavis 6-1 6-2
Haven't hit a ball in two months. And the hammy's been playing upBrucey Baby Evans
Heard Milford had a weak team so we didn't play our strongest side with Natalie O'BrienPeter Warren Lavis
Only had my flu jab yesterday so...Gwyn Scale
Just felt out of sorts today, couldn't get goingLiz Moss
Even if we'd played Natalie it wouldn't 'av made any diff against those two, the Evans boysStevey Summers
Have hardly ever played doublesMathieu 'The Real Deal' Evans
About a year ago (in middle age) I came to the convenient conclusion that the day wasn't long enough (and life wasn't long enough) for tennis: changing. driving, parking, stretching, playing, losing, stretching, driving, showering and changing...Martin Amis
And one that was captivating passers-by more used to seeing football and rugby here. They were drawn in, slightly bemused, slightly bashful, unsure, childlike as if approaching a street magician.
Watching the Milford B pairing in action was like watching a tennis version of a wise old kung fu master and his talented protégé. Quiet. Understated. Joyful. No fuss. Nothing wasted. Two players going about their play with a delicious and mesmerising fluency, unhurried, in synch, fully absorbed, oh yeah: and with a serve that kicked like a bastard. Almost unreal. Evans and Son. The Hakin SAS. Bruce and Mathieu. This is what a lifetime of high level tennis talent and experience looks like when distilled into a perfect 60 minutes on court and passed on to the next generation. You simply could not take your eyes off of it, even for a second. Neither did you want to, as everything else faded out of focus into a silent background that did not matter at all.
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