Steve Ronaldson, Personal Recollection

A Personal Recollection, By Maggie Henderson-Tew

In 1984, my company seconded me from Head Office in London to their offices on the South Coast of England and was I obliged to switch from my passion of river rowing to coastal rowing, which was absolutely ghastly in every way. After half a season of misery, I determined to try a new sport and one in which I would never be cold and wet again (I hoped, but that was before I had any idea just how perishingly cold Oxford, Hardwick and other courts could be in winter) and was alerted by a colleague that there was a real tennis court at Canford School. I decided to contact the professional to set up an initial lesson.

Steve Ronaldson proved to be large, exuberant and extrovert. As a fellow left-hander, I thought that he might be the ideal teacher for me. Alas, I remain an average player 38 years later, which I blame entirely on him and am delighted to remind him of the fact with tedious frequency. If only I could have been started off by someone else, think what heights I might have scaled! To be fair, I am sure he did his best and the inadequacy may, just may, be on my side, but a lingering doubt remains.

Nevertheless, the experience of being introduced to the game by Steve was a memorable one. I had been warned that he was a practical joker with an apparently bottomless well of risqué, sexist, misogynistic, vulgar and non-pc jokes, and this reputation prepared me for the fact that we might well not hit it off. My fears were not lessened after my first lesson, though for different reasons. I can remember standing helplessly on the court unable to return any ball hit towards me, nor even being able to hit the damned thing out of my hand. Curiously, Steve remained so encouraging and enthusiastic that, despite my humiliation, I was determined to go back and do better next time. Little did I know that a lifetime of frustration, alleviated by the occasional burst of mediocrity, lay ahead of me.

It became clear that the eccentricity of the game induces a kind of madness in some players and that Steve was particularly badly affected. One never quite knew what he might do next and the Tennis court seemed to be a kind of theatre for him.

The fact that ‘Chase 8’ (see photo left) existed at Canford and nowhere else, and was entirely of Steve’s invention, might have given me a clue, but I knew no better at the time.

Steve demonstrated that it was possible to play a good standard tennis on a unicycle (but that trying to execute the legendary Penthouse Run on such a machine was likely to result in a near-death experience). The creation of Red Nose Day in 1988 only seemed to make him worse. He rode his

unicycle through the Canford School campus, to the delight of the students, wearing a striking ensemble comprising tutu, beard, red nose and matching trackies, while raising money for charity.

The alarming and, regrettably, searingly unforgettable sight of Steve wearing his favourite little number was repeated at the French Open that same year. He and his assistant, Adam Phillips, played in the Doubles competition in matching tutus, tights, trainers and sweatshirts, which, as you can tell from the photo below, was not a sight for the faint-hearted.

Steve enjoys the odd wager and I emphasise the words ‘odd’ and ‘wager’. I learned the hard way that, if invited to place a bet on a match between a human being and a slice of cake (of any variety, it seemed, sitting pretty on a small plate, with or without whipped cream and sprinkles), off full handicap, a wise punter should ALWAYS back the cake. Similarly, if Steve challenged you to play him using your racquet, while playing without one and instead catching the ball and throwing it back over the net, DO NOT be an idiot and back yourself.

But despite (or perhaps because of) the weirdness on and off court, I got hooked very quickly on the game and got to know Steve, dear long-suffering Barbara, and their then-young children Leah and Matty, pretty well during the remaining 12 months I spent on the South Coast. They were extremely hospitable, and the warmth of welcome at their home and at the tennis club has been a hallmark of Steve’s tenure. I spent hours in their sitting room after playing, often watching Matty, aged about 5 years old, struggling with a variety of fiendish games lined up by Steve that were intended to improve his hand/eye coordination, and learning more about the world of Real Tennis and some of the characters and places within it. Steve was relaxed, hospitable and, it seemed to me, already part of the furniture at the school that he had joined a couple of years previously.

The photo above shows a much more conventionally-clad Steve, because, yes, even he has calmed down a bit and become a lot more sensible as he has got older.

It is very hard to imagine Canford without Steve and it is pretty hard to imagine Steve without Canford. Thanks for all the great memories, Steve, and for doing your best with some pretty poor material when you got me started as a Tennis player. Good luck and good health to you and Barbara in your new life amidst the golf courses of Scotland. It is the end of an era!

Many thanks to Barbara for the archive photos