by Dick Tanfield
Hatfield House is a two-starred, Michelin ‘must-see’. Adjoining it is Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Old Palace’ which is prettier (see picture). Much of it was covered in blooming wisteria. The Tennis Court is integrated with Her stables and is just beside Her gatehouse. Through that gatehouse, in Her day, passed all the stagecoaches on the Great North Road. Happily, its successor, the M1, is now five miles away.
The Munoz trophy was contested by four countries playing with two pairs each. France could not field two pairs so one was ‘Rest of World’. The first pair to play had the worse handicap. Our team of four consisted of Pardee and Tanfield (h’caps in low forties), Zacher and Pell, Sr (h’caps in high 60’s). In case of one of our pairs winning and one losing the tiebreaker was an unscheduled set to include one player from each of our pairs. This rule played havoc with the scheduling which also affected the Danby Trophy matches because they shared the court with us; it will probably be eliminated in future World Masters. Originally, we were going to play with one stronger player and one weaker in each pair, but the tiebreaker rule persuaded us to play the two stronger together and try to win the tiebreaker.
In our first match, against Australia, Jules Zacher and Peter Pell, Sr. lost narrowly, 5-6, 5-6 to Tony Poolman and Duncan Crockett. Then Pardee and Tanfield won in three sets after a hiatus caused by the latter’s mismanaged blood-sugar. That was against Phil Roberts and Mick Fenelon. The unscheduled tiebreaker meant that Zacher and Tanfield, who won it narrowly, were still detaining the marker and gallery at 11:15pm.
Against Great Britain we did not win either of the pairs although the second match was 5-6, 6-5, 5-6 and lasted two and a half hours against John Ward and Willie Wilkes. At this point GB had beaten Australia and US and therefore won the 2024 Munoz Trophy.
In our third match against RoW, as we could no longer win, we reverted to the natural line-up, Tanfield and Pell won 6-1, 6-0 against Oddo and Guest but Pardee and Zacher lost to Vaughn Williams and Harry Saint 6-4,1-6,1-6. These winners, not selected by GB, did very well at Queen’s the following week. So we had yet another tiebreaker which Pardee & Tanfield won 6-0. Therefore, we won second prize in The Munoz.
Jonathan Fisher, our Hatfield host, ended it all with a splendid dinner in The Old Palace. The other teams, Cockram (50+) and Bostwick (60+) travelled from other parts of London to join us, the Danby and Munoz teams So did Nick Brodie (organizer of the team events) and the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire who was more decorative and personable than the rest of us put together (see picture)
It was a wonderful week visit… Hatfield is definitely a must-see and a must-play.
Jules Zacher, Jonathan Pardee, Dick Tanfield & Peter Pell, Sr.
