Winter Success for Club Towers Tennis Teams

The Bedfordshire Clubs 2025/26 Winter Tennis League finished in March, and there were some excellent performances from our teams once again. You can view the end of season tables for the whole league here. A summary of our own teams is as follows …

Open A – led by Garry Morris, the team rebounded from a difficult season last summer by taking the Premier league crown for the first time, ahead of strong opposition from the two Riverside teams and Flitwick A. A magnificent achievement!

Open B – Paul Thomas steered his team from 3^rd place in 2024/25 to winning Division 1 this time around. They will surely be promoted to the Premier league next winter. Glenn Rudd’s Open C team had a tougher campaign in this division, finishing in 7^th place.

Open D – led by rookie captain Tom Hall, finished a fine run with 2^nd place in Division 3, just pipped by Riverside E. Hopefully they did enough to gain promotion next winter.

This was surely the best season ever for our Open teams. Well done guys!

Ladies A – led by Sophie Cable, they tied with Riverside A at the top of the Premier Division, winning 7 out of 8 matches. Just squeezed into second place by Riverside, who won one more set than Sophie’s team. Amanda Greenland’s Ladies B team finished one place below in a highly creditable 3^rd place in the same division.

Ladies C –Jane Jafarifar captained her team to the Division One title last winter, and had another solid set of results this season, finishing in a creditable 4^th place by winning 3 of their 7 matches against stiff opposition.

Mixed A and Mixed B – our Mixed teams have dominated the top division in recent seasons but were overhauled this year by very strong Riverside and Flitwick teams. Nevertheless, Claire Raddan’s Mixed A and Dorian Abram’s Mixed B more than held their own by finishing 3^rd and 4^th in Division One respectively.

Mixed C and Mixed D – Andy Willsher’s Mixed C team won all their matches in Division 2, to dominate all the other teams this year. They finished 6 points ahead of four other teams who were each tied on 6 points, including Karen Wright’s Mixed D team. A brilliant season Andy .. .well done!

Vets Ladies B – The big highlight among the Vets teams was Kathy Wallis’ Ladies B team, comfortably finishing top in Division 2, winning 7 and drawing 1 of their 8 matches. Well done ladies!

Our other Vets teams had slightly less success than usual this season, but all except Open B held their own with mid-table placements.

Well done to all our captains and players for representing the Club with pride and distinction. Special congratulations go to Garry, Paul, Andy and Kathy and all your players for your winning season …. Worthy winter league champions!

How to Get Involved

We always welcome new blood into our teams. Captains are often on the lookout to bolster their squads with players who commit to playing home and away matches. We recommend you make yourself known to the Team captains by challenging them to a game by organising a four? This is a great way to find the right level team for you and to mix in with the players. Please be patient as we have large squads currently.  Captains’ details and player names in each team can be found on the Tennis noticeboard in the squash corridor.

We have 19 Teams in total, most of which play at 7pm on weekday evenings while our Vets teams play at 10am on weekdays. There are occasional matches on Saturday mornings. The qualifying ages for Vets are O50 for Men and O45 for ladies.

Matches involve two rubbers per pair, totalling four sets plus possibly deciding tie-breaks if the scores are tied at 1-1. There are teas after the match so a typical match will last for around 3 hours. Match fees are collected by the captains to cover the cost of the food and balls provided. Players who commit to our club teams are often invited to attend group coaching sessions and practice sessions with the other teams. The coaching session schedule is circulated to the participating players via WhatsApp group polls.

For more information please contact Sam Berrill at [email protected]