By accident, and because I was the only one mildly qualified, I progressively grew into a tennis coach. I did not look the part but I zestfully threw myself into it. Around me, at my small town tennis club, the personalities and happenings created a leisure amphitheatre. There was much more than tennis going on. Amateur building projects, unprofessional repairs and maintenance, catastrophic social events, personality disorders, sporting fashion, non-conformity, beginners, juniors and self appointed experts, they made this leisure cauldron of life more than interesting. What else would you talk about up the pub? The characters involved in these stories in the main were cheerful, and as at most social gatherings, dubious wit and humour abounded. The tennis club made, and makes, a lot of people happy. It fails to produce the product that the LTA is looking for but hey, there’s more to life than Tim, Greg and Andy! This is the growing pains of this reluctant tennis coach and the creakings of this tennis club in unclassified social limbo in an expanding north Essex town. May it live on for ever, sticky tape, staples, glue and beer permitting…