Authors: Mike Read
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?