Elmdale Tennis Club (see your name here?)

[Rolf Clack]

Lots of us played tennis at the Elmdale Tennis Club just on the corner of the Fisher Park grounds.

Where are you folks?

Gord Lang, Neil Longhurst, Dan Sigler, Ken McGillvary ... and a whole bunch of people like me who were at Fisher Park HS mainly during the 70's (see 70's forum for the full message).

C'mon, let's hear from you. We can talk about how the clubhouse burned down (when was that? about 1969??) and how it evolved since then.

I think they still have some old trophies in there with names of people like John Hartin, Malcom & Maureen Shaw, Doug Panther, Bob Lister, Jean-Paul Oulette, Ed Dunnit, Al Samson, and perhaps even the next generation: Rick Leach, and so on...

[Bruce Leonard]

Rolf:
I played a few games against Bob Lister a few years ago and he is still pretty good.
I was subbing for a friend in a doubles match and Bob walked on the court. I recognized him right away, as he had been our paperboy when he was younger.
Of course he does have a few years on me.
I never played until I moved here and always went by the Elmdale club and wondered who the crazy people were playing in the hot summer sun.
Years later I became one of them.
Hope you get to hear from some of them.

[Rolf Clack]

Thanks for the message Bruce. I remember Bob Lister as one of the best players in the club in the late 60s. He must be in his 60s now, or at the very least late 50s; good to hear he is still playing. I remember him having one of the first metal raquets, and that if you looked at the stringing (real gut in those days) it was worn only in a small tennis-ball-sized region in the center (before the terminology "sweet-spot" had been coined). One day I found out why - I saw one of hisraquets had been strung ONLY in the center - it would have been unforgiving to not hit the ball exactly right! I even recall some of his style of play, and of Gord Lang complaining that Bob's shots would only bounce about 2 inches.

[Ross Eaman]

I learned to play tennis at the Elmdale before moving over to the Ottawa Tennis Club while going to Carleton (1964-68) where I played for the university team. I could never beat Bob though he was a year younger.