BIDFORD Tennis Club has been recognised as the South Warwickshire Summer Tennis League’s Club of the Year for 2015 as recipients of the King Cup.
Bidford is the first club to receive this award twice in the history of the league and once again the club is a deserving winner.
League secretary Corin Bishop revealed this decision was based first by eliminating from the 22 clubs in the league those who did not enter the Junior League, which left ten.
Then, any that had been fined or docked points for rule infringements or fielding only one pair during the current season of the men’s league and therefore caused problems for the league administrators were excluded, which left just four.
All four of the remaining clubs had won the award before – Bidford being the inaugural winners in 2004, Stratford who won in 2009, HDA Redditch who won in 2012 and Littletons who took the title in 2013.
Bidford TC has always been involved with the league, with at least two officials on the committee since its inauguration 26 years ago. Even today, there are still two in Malcolm Dewsbury and Paul Haffner who have served 17 years and 13 years respectively on the league committee.
Malcolm is still chairman of the club as well as league treasurer and Paul is a past Bidford committee member and still Division Three league organiser.
Another past member of the league committee who served for seven years and is currently Bidford’s membership secretary is Simon Price.
Bidford has also supplied its courts free of charge for the league’s Junior Cup play-off finals for the first ten years of the competition.
Both Bidford A and B teams in Divisions Four and Five had unimpeachable records this season and, as well as a junior pair, fielded two women’s sides. Both men’s teams received nominations for the Fair Play Award due to their after-match hospitality and friendliness to their visiting teams.
For all these reasons Bidford-on-Avon Tennis Club is fully deserving of its title of Club of the Year 2015.
