I decided quite recently that it was time I did a clear out of my wardrobe – mainly because it’s quite a while since I tackled that particular job.  Patricia, on the other hand, lives in a perpetual state of “doing some clearing” and when I visited her last week and saw the entire contents of her wardrobe on her bedroom floor, it gave me the push I needed to get started.

Normally I’m pretty ruthless.  If it hasn’t been on my back for five years, out it goes into one of three piles.  Pile one is for the charity shop;  pile two consists of items to offer to friends or family which, if rejected, will transfer to pile one; and pile three consists of things beyond repair which somehow managed to avoid the last cull.

I made a start and did a section of my wardrobe and then, for some unfathomable reason, decided to have a look in a wardrobe in a spare bedroom.  I couldn’t believe my eyes at what I saw there.  In at the back, tucked away behind old winter coats and spare duvets and pillows were my international team blazers from amateur days……… and what was that residing in a Dubai Duty Free carrier bag that had the strapline, “Full of Surprises” printed across the bottom?  Only my green Irish international jersey.  Well, that was indeed a surprise – particularly when I worked out it must be 39 years old and had somehow miraculously avoided the moths!  The evidence is in the photo at the top.

There were two Irish blazers – one bottle green one and one much brighter green one.  The dark one was in vogue for my first cap in the Home Internationals back in 1978 at Moortown golf club in Leeds.  It was the fulfillment of all my childhood dreams to be able to pull that on, the result of hours of practising and striving and suddenly it was all worthwhile.  At the end of the week my record read – played one match, lost one match (to my now great pal, Pam Whitley Valentine) and I decided this golf lark was, perhaps, not for me after all.

The next time I pulled on an Irish blazer was ten months later and this time it was the bright green one.  My golf must also have been considerably brighter as in the interim I’d won the British Amateur (now known as the Women’s Amateur).  The bright green suited us as Ireland dazzled their way to success that year in the European Team Championships held at Hermitage golf club in Dublin.  We won the Home Internationals the following year at Cruden Bay and repeated our European win in 1983 in Brussels.  That blazer saw a lot of very good parties.

A bit more rummaging produced a couple of navy blazers.  Ah, must be my Great Britain & Ireland blazer……….but no, both were from the coaching part of my career which succeeded the playing part.  One was from my time as the Welsh National Coach and the other when I was coach to the Ladies’ Golf Union, looking after the Great Britain & Ireland squads.  That was all very well but not nearly as interesting to me as the blazer I had donned over the years when playing in the Vagliano Trophy, the Curtis Cup, the Commonwealth Tournament and the World Amateur Team Championships.  Where on earth could that be?

In the space of twenty minutes I had gone from being surprised at finding my Irish blazers and jumper to being dismayed that I couldn’t find my GB&I one.  Searches of other spare wardrobes and even a trip to the attic, which I knew would be fruitless, failed to produce said jacket.  Where was it?   How could you LOSE your international team blazer?

Somewhere, somewhere, rattling around in the dim, distant recesses of my brain is the feeling that I lent it to someone.  I have no idea to whom.  And I’ve never heard of anyone having to borrow a team blazer – seems very odd indeed to me.  I cannot think of any other explanation however.

Of the two navy blazers that were hanging there my favourite is undoubtedly my Welsh one.  It instantly transports me back to my proudest Welsh moment at Dornoch in 1999 when Wales won the women’s Home International series for the first time ever.  What a team……and what a result to put alongside the previous month’s victory by the girls’ team in the Junior International series.  The double was accomplished, creating history and ushering in an exciting time for Welsh golf after decades of taking home the wooden spoon.

That was another great party and yes, tears were shed.

So, I now need help with the conundrum that faces me.  I have no children to foist these items on and none of piles one, two or three is suitable for these garments – so what do I do?  Just hang them back up in the spare wardrobe and continue to wonder what happened to the missing blazer?  All of you out there – from the US, from Europe, the Commonwealth and from GB&I – what fate has befallen YOUR international blazers?

All advice and correspondence very welcome…….especially if I lent you a navy blue blazer with rather a smart badge way back when.

 

It’s October, so it must be time for the July Club to meet.

Faithful followers of this blog will be aware of the existence of this little club of golfers, exclusive only in that it has four members, two Scotswomen and two Irishwomen.  One day our collective brainpower, such as it is, hatched the idea that we should have an annual golfing trip, lasting a week, and that we’d alternate each year between Ireland and Scotland.  The natives of that year’s host country were responsible for sorting out the accommodation and organising the golf courses.  Not too difficult, you might think, and certainly it wasn’t, as we all lived (or knew folk who lived) in places that were ideal centres for a golf week.

The get-together was to take place in October as that seemed the only realistic time of year we could reliably co-ordinate our diaries.  Eligibility for entry into this exclusive little club rested solely on being present when the idea was first mooted which means the full roster of membership reads as follows:  Gillian Stewart and Sandra Ross from Scotland and Mary McKenna and Maureen Madill from Ireland.

One of our early trips provided us with a catchphrase for our group.  We were staying down in the wilds of southwest Ireland with a great friend, Kay Keating, who introduced us to the gem that is Dooks, her home club.  She’d send us on our way each morning to wherever we were playing that day, saying she’d be waiting for us, “arms outstretched”, when we came home.  And indeed she was – arms outstretched, fire lit, meal on the go, wine open, all set for another evening of incomparable Kerry hospitality.  In ensuing years, when we would meet up again for our precious week in October there would be great arms outstretched reunions at airports to kickstart the trip.

Originally, the week would pan out something like this:  Sunday was travel day, Monday golf, Tuesday golf, Wednesday sightseeing, Thursday golf, Friday golf, Saturday sightseeing, Sunday home.  So, in the beginning at any rate, we played four different courses at each get-together.  One year we played Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and the Old Course at St Andrews – all on this week’s roster for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the DP World tour.  I guarantee we had more laughs than we had a right to and our competitive juices were fuelled by the cut and thrust of fourball golf.  I think the fourth course we tackled that year was Ladybank, home of the late Dale Reid, a wonderful character and great friend.

It was realising that we’d arrived at the week of the Alfred Dunhill that set me to thinking of all the courses we have enjoyed playing as part of our little club.  How’s this for a selection?  Amongst others, our list comprises Royal Dornoch, Tain, Brora, Royal Aberdeen, Aboyne, Ballater, Banchory, Nairn, Castle Stuart, Royal Tara, Donabate, Seapoint, Co Louth, Dooks, Waterville, Ballybunion, Royal Portrush, Portstewart, Castlerock, Royal Co Down and The European.

Ah…..The European.  What a course…and what an ethos for a golf club.  Lovingly crafted by hand by architect Pat Ruddy and his entire family the course is a joy.  It’s for golfers by golfers………..everything is secondary to the course.  The clubhouse is modest – no Taj Mahal-like edifice here.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s perfectly comfortable but there’s certainly no hint of affectation nor any delusions of grandeur.

The only thing to come close to rivalling the course is the welcome and it was in the pro’s shop that Gerry Ruddy unwittingly provided the name for our little group.  He had us in stitches, making a right show of salaaming as the great Mary McKenna sailed into the shop.  She’s royalty in Ireland, rivalling the one and only Christy O’Connor (known as “Himself”) in the affection in which she’s held by the golfing populace.

Steeped in the game. Gerry instantly knew of Gillian’s prowess – three-time Scottish champion, Curtis Cup player and multiple Ladies’ European Tour winner, amongst her many other accomplishments.  He made the same good-natured fuss of Gill and I also got a few mock bows thrown in my direction.

Sandra thought she had him licked.  “Well, you don’t know anything about me,” she said, thinking that a mere scratch handicap and County Championship titles may have passed him by.

“Oh, yes I do,” Gerry responded quickly.  “You’re Miss July.”

After general astonishment and questioning, Gerry informed us that as an accredited photographer at multiple Open Championships, his visits to the media centre had made him very familiar with the sight of Sandra up a stepladder keeping the giant scoreboard up-to-date for the world’s media.  This was pre the electronic boards that are used now and each year Sandra was the leader of the team that manually put in every hole score for every player in the field.  She was blissfully unaware that her legs were at the eye-level of several hundred writers and snappers (mostly men) for an entire week for 32 years!!  Hence the nickname.

We all loved this yarn and forthwith decided that our group name would be the July Club – it still brings a smile to our faces, so thank you Gerry.

It’s some years now, with Covid and lockdowns and suchlike, since the July Club boasted four fully playing members.  The Irish half of the gang have somewhat fallen by the wayside, with Mary Mc now an avid, and accomplished, photographer, as opposed to golfer.  And over the last six months I’ve come to terms with the fact that my playing days are behind me and am currently exploring new interests and/or hobbies to take their place.  We won’t disband the club, however – it may just slightly change direction.

The 2024 meeting was at this year’s Curtis Cup at Sunningdale.

Time plans were afoot for 2025.

 

Heaven only knows why I’m writing this blog at the usual time – late – on a Thursday evening because it could have been written days ago.  Perhaps it was exhaustion – travel fatigue – that kept me quiet until the deadline loomed.

I’m beginning to think that it’s easier and quicker to get to the Isles of Scilly (see pic above, technical glitches permitting) than it is to make the trek to N17.  Forgive me for regaling you with yet another travel yarn  – Robert Louis Stevenson I am not but here’s a wee fact for you:  double checking how RLS spelt his L, I discovered that he was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson.  No idea why or when he made the change.

You’ll be glad – and probably not surprised – to know that Insomniacs Anonymous have been in touch to enquire about the possibility of recording some of my footie ramblings; they reckon only the worst cases will stay awake long enough to make the entire journey to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

And this latest iteration is one of the longest and most convoluted of them all.  Mind you, it pales into insignificance with the expeditions of dedicated fans venturing to away matches.  For instance, at least one Larne supporter travelling to Norway for his side’s UEFA Conference League match against Molde, had to take six flights.  There was, apparently, a chartered flight but presumably it was more direct.  Larne’s rise up the ranks has been helped by investment from a local businessman who helped found Purple Bricks but you’ll be glad to hear that the club, founded in 1889, still plays in red.

This saga is starting slowly, a bit like the journey.  The warning signs were there at the beginning, at Lichfield Trent Valley, when the 1250 Avanti train to Euston was still there at 1400 – and beyond.  A sensible soul might have taken the hint but I had paid for the car park and was booked in to the Lee Valley Youth Hostel for the night, non-refundable, so I ploughed on.  Well, got on the stationary train (not the one I’d booked) and ate the delicious pastrami focaccia roll from the Bore Street Bakery.  I’d need the sustenance.

In due course, we started moving and crawled to Tamworth (not far as many of you know, maximum five minutes).  Taking a breath of air with the smokers on the platform, I heard a faint announcement saying something about a train to Derby, then change for London St Pancras.  Hmmm.  Will I, won’t I?  I decided to go for it just as the Avanti train manager was telling us that his train would terminate at Rugby.  Chaos everywhere in the vicinity of Euston apparently.  So, Derby it was.

We arrived at St P at rush hour, of course and I headed for the tube, dodging people who’d just been decanted from France.  I was still thinking I’d have time to get to Cheshunt and dump my stuff at the youth hostel, two minutes’ walk from the station.  Change to the overground at Seven Sisters, then train to Cheshunt.  It might have worked in theory but on the tube there was an announcement that told us that there were no overground services from Seven Sisters or Tottenham Hale.  Noooooo.  Surely not?  What next?

Off at Seven Sisters, where a lovely, cheerful young woman, whose job was to tell people that the station was now closed, admired my earrings and advised me to find a caff near the stadium and “chill”!  I took her advice to heart, found a taxi (the driver was wearing a Spurs shirt) and met up with John “The Oracle” at La Barca near the ground.  It was nearly 1900 by this time, with kick-off scheduled for 2000.  I ordered an omelette and chips – it was not a night for salad – and relaxed as it started tipping it down outside.

Then we heard that kick-off had been delayed by 35 minutes!!!  So much for trains home.  Turned out Qarabag, our opponents, had been stuck in traffic for a couple of hours.  Then I got stuck in the bag drop queue – why didn’t I just bring my toothbrush and a pair of spare knickers – or should that be a spare pair of knickers?  Scan QR code, register, pay a tenner, all the while juggling the blasted bags.  Patience.  Breathe.  Smile.  Be polite.  Aaaaaaagh.

Then what happens?  We have a man sent off within seven, SEVEN, minutes.  Bloody hell.  Turns out their defence is even leakier than ours, their strikers are more profligate than ours and our goalie made some cracking saves, our ten men put a shift in and we won 3-nil.  Another bonkers night with the Spurs.  (The computer changed bonkers to bankers and I suppose that really does sum up football.)

Another queue to pick up the bag; a scurry to Northumberland Park (don’t ask), knowing I’d no hope of catching the 2307, the last train to Cheshunt according to my reading of the timetable; another queue; don’t worry the policeman said, the 2307 has been cancelled, you can camp on the platform until the morning…….No, of course he didn’t say that but because of the disruption all the Cambridge-bound trains were stopping everywhere, including Cheshunt.  A young man gave me his seat and I found the youth hostel, keeling over the reception desk shortly before midnight.

“You’re in lodge 4,” said the guy manning the desk, directing me outside again.  As I turned the corner, I saw five lodges and counted….yes, of course, you couldn’t make it up.  Outside lodge 4 stood the welcoming committee:  two guys, bearded, tattooed and naked apart from their underpants, were on the doorstep drinking beer and chatting.

It had been a long day but I did clock that they were in a lot better shape than I was.  And they were very, very apologetic as they stood aside to let me in.

I slept like a log.

 

 

 

 

As I watched the hordes of spectators jostling for position outside the ropes at Wentworth last week at the BMW PGA Championship it reminded me of the halcyon days, in the 1980s I think, when Mum and I attended a few World Matchplay events there.  I think the sponsors at that time were Suntory, a Japanese whisk(e)y firm, and a wee nip of the sponsor’s product was always welcome on those crisp, autumnal mornings in October.

Dad was still slogging away at the coalface of employment and Patricia was………..well, goodness knows where – possibly covering the fledgling Ladies’ European Tour, so it was treasured time for me with Mum, who, according to the family, was an expert in all things in general and golf in particular!  (I thought I’d better finish that sentence with an exclamation so that you wouldn’t take that last remark in the least bit seriously.)  She always was an entertaining companion and a keen and wily golf spectator, knowing exactly how to move around the course to get the best view of every shot.  We’d tramp round 36 holes a day, love every second of it and then get up and do it all again the next day.  No need for a gym subscription way back then.

Wentworth, at the Matchplay, was also the first place I ever wore wellie boots on a golf course.  The going outside the ropes could get a little soft and wellies were just the job.  It’s where we jointly discovered that if going downhill on a slippery slope it was best to go on your toes.  That way, your heel couldn’t shoot out from underneath you depositing you on your backside.  Balance was more easily maintained on tiptoe.  You see – it IS possible to learn something from even the most shallow of blogs!  As Billy Connolly so succinctly put it, “If it wisnae fur yer wellies, where wud ye be?”

Those were great days with Mum and long before I had any thoughts of there being a smidgeon of a possibility that I might one day work in golf for the BBC.  When that became a reality, the accompanying accreditation allowed for access to the hallowed ground inside the ropes at big tournaments where the view is second to none.

It brought home to me just how hard golf fans have to work to see their idols.  If you like to follow a particular group or a specific player, there’s no comfy seat from which to view the world’s best parade past you.  No, out you go in all weathers, ducking and diving, constantly on the go before standing still for ages for microscopic green-reading and the like.  Peter Alliss always said the golfing galleries were the most patient and accepting of all sports spectators.  They pay a lot for the privilege of being told when to stand still, when to keep quiet and their very existence seems to be ruled entirely by a single strand of rope and being on the correct side of it.

In return, they do have the opportunity to get very close indeed to the best golfers in the world – far closer than other fans would get to the protagonists in other sports, footballers, cricketers, tennis players and the like.  And, oh my, should you have the good fortune to be struck by a stray golf ball, you may even rise to the dizzy heights of receiving a signed glove from the player.  Be still my beating heart!

As I write this blog my phone has just pinged, warning me that the latest episode of The Chipping Forecast, with Andrew Cotter, Eddie Pepperell and special guest Iain Carter, has just landed.  It’s a great listen and I urge you to subscribe to it and make it part of your week.  I guarantee it’ll liven up any grey afternoon when you can’t get out on the golf course.

Wentworth was where I first met and worked with Andrew.  He was a young sports commentator but at that point hadn’t had the opening to have a go at any golf, his first love.  I was considered reasonably experienced as a summariser at this juncture and was told by the producer I would be working with this “new guy” and to “look after him”.  I could see he was very nervous, more than a trifle uptight and not disposed to chat much as we made our way up the 1st.  We were both working for 5 Live at the time and at the first green they came to Andrew for an update.

I stood next to him as he delivered the first of  what has now probably become hundreds of thousands of golf reports.  He did beautifully but had a little stumble over a word or two.  As the broadcast moved on to someone else Andrew was distraught.  He banged his head with his hand, declared there was nothing he wanted to do more than join the golf team and that he’d blown his chance.  I was astounded but tried to reassure him that that was certainly not the case.  I was soon to learn that a young Cotter was angst-ridden, never quite believing in his own abilities, and that his desire for perfection led to astronomical amounts of research and soul-searching.

It was apparent to most of those who worked with him that he had the talent and ability to forge his way to an outstanding career and if there is currently a better golf commentator on the planet, I don’t know them.  And I know, not all, but a great number of them.  And it’s not just golf.  He is simply brilliant right across the board, from adeptly hosting Olympic opening and closing ceremonies with Hazel Irvine to explaining the intricacies of rugby where you can’t see the ball for about 80 per cent of the time.

One of the reasons I love the aforementioned podcast is because with his two co-hosts he seems completely relaxed and able to be himself.  With his dry humour he pokes fun at himself and his “dark side” as well as at all and sundry.  Eddie (who had a season’s best finish of joint 12th at Wentworth) and Iain, 5 Live’s much respected golf correspondent, make up a perfect podcast trio with their stream of consciousness chat and inability to take themselves seriously.  Eddie is almost as droll as Andrew and I laughed out loud when he recounted how he’d tossed a ball to a little lad as he left the 7th green at Wentworth last week.  Said lad tossed it straight back!

Well done, that boy!