I was born in Pinelands – went to the Blue school and then RBHS. Then UCT. Left after graduation to work in PE and Pretoria. 10 years later did an MBA in CT and returned to stay in Pinelands, married with two daughters.
I was about 34 when I joined PTC – about 1973. I had never played tennis – my love was for rugby but circa 1960 in a match some idiot jumped on my knee and destroyed the medial ligament. Doctors declared I should not run any more and advised swimming.
But I needed exercise. In ”73 I visited a specialist who said I should play an active sport – like tennis – to strengthen the knee. (aha) To cut a long story short I joined PTC and managed to circumvent the committee – in those days there was a waiting list and my tennis was beginner class. My opinion of tennis players was that they were a bunch of wimps!
Nonetheless in those days TV had not arrived and tennis clubs were great places to to gather for the family. Saturday evenings were party-time. Nobody left before 9pm and there was no serious prohibition. Drunk driving was close to a cult experience. Bob Hewitt, Frew McMillan (Micky’s brother), Cliff Drysdale, Gordon Forbes, Abe Segal were all the buzz players in those days
I grew to enjoy the game and play league. Captained the bottom team where traditionally the older players gave guidance to the youngsters – Brian Addison, James Phillipson, Gary Hastie were a few (I have a picture of them in our 7th lg team that won the league in ’77- I was captain!). Because I was noisy and outspoken (like all MBA’s) I quickly ended up on the PTC committee and became club captain (not because I was a good player but probably I was trained to be a communicator). I took pictures of all the winning teams and kept records of player performance – I rapidly learnt that tennis players were a bunch of egotists and loved to be noticed. But to get them together for a pic was a mission.
The realisation that I was unlikely to make Wimbledon or the Davis cup team forced me to seek other ways of getting close to top players on the court. I loved the cut and thrust and sweat and swearing (McEnroe was at large). I joined the newly formed Umpires Association under the guidance of Ian Campbell and earned my provincial grade ticket. I became involved in running Senior Championship tournaments. Up to the early 90’s there would be at least 6 a year and clubs would vie for the honour to host them. We were for many years the season opening tournament with the Pinelands Open. I secured a sponsorship of about R3000 a year from Standard Bank for Pinelands – that’s equivalent to R30 000 nowadays. In those days players were dependent on those events for recognition . Sadly the arrival of TV was to put and end to that.
PTC was well-connected at Rondebosch. Fay Knight was secretary at WPTA for many years, our members were involved in the working committees (Micky Mcmillan, Mike Dunk, Mrs Barrable, etc.) Bob Low was churning around running tournaments and umpiring at the major events in the Cape and could hardly be missed. So it was inevitable that in the early 80’s I ended up on the executive of WPTA as assistant to Ramsay King who had been running leagues for years – he was my age (now) then.
I had two hobbies in my life that fitted well into the dynamics of tennis administration – photography and computers. The first thing I noticed about the league administration was that it was a manual effort (no computers) – Fay Knight would write out laboriously the schedules for leagues that Ramsay had created. He too had a manual method of preparing the schedules. I would take the schedules to the printers who would print out draft copies that we had to proof read. And of course once that was done there was no possibility of accommodating any changes.
Being an eager MBA I realised that computers could make life a lot easier and so I first got the schedules on to a spread sheet (Lotus 123). I developed a compact method of display that cut the number of printed pages by half. Nowadays with electronic communication the only printing that is done is by clubs that extract their own schedules. Then I set about automating the schedules with a package that not only prepared the correct round robin, but also synch’d them to handle multiple leagues at different venues and balanced the availability of courts. The system now records every player result and opposition name and automatically gives each player a rating. The actual league preparation takes a few hours being taking on the club entries. What still takes time is getting the clubs to respond and agree the schedules – weeks!
Back home at Pinelands we became the first club to set up regular tours to the Eastern Cape. Since 1950’s the Eastern Cape Seniors would visit the Cape for a week and play against selected clubs. Pinelands participated from the start. They consistently nagged us to return the the compliment. In 1987 our Chairman at that time, Arthur Fuller, set up a tour of 10 players to PE, Knysna and George. I was privileged to be invited and subsequently went on tour 21 times over the next 24 years. My contribution was a photographic record and the task of team MC – mainly herding the team home before they overstayed their welcome
It was inevitable that following Peters Principle that every person rises to his own level of incompetence I was elected to the position of President of PTC. The position allows me to attend all committee meetings and I there can indulge in the easy comments without having to do much work.
Pinelands Tennis Club has been a major part of my life and given me tremendous pleasure and satisfaction. Working with amateurs is not easy – they cannot be fired and they can disappear in a puff of smoke. But they are family and if they can be part of the action they will be more efficient than any business. We have been fortunate to have strong chairmen that have risen to the challenge. Currently we have committee members that are a pleasure to work with and execute their tasks with dedication. The club vibe is at the best we have had for years.
Written by Bob Low
