Week 42 - Great Britain F21 ($10,000) - Loughborough (Hard)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 42 - Great Britain F21 ($10,000) - Loughborough (Hard)

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

Got time on my hands becaused worked my Bol..cks off for 30 years and built a successful team

Don't think other directors have seen the forum but they have witnessed the lack of support from LTA and petty local tennis politics .They feel there are more deserving projects Outside of GB tennis and the posts on this forum are leading me round to their way of thinking .

Sponsors for individuals in GB tennis are very rare and should be welcomed and supported at a time when many GB business 's are struggling . I have spent considerable amounts of time & effort looking for sponsors for other GB players and it's not easy .

During the last 10 years I turned down the opportunities to sponsor 2 foreign players who both went on to win grand slams ( singles & doubles ) because I insisted they had to adopt GB nationality . That won't happen again !

I have now helped over 10 GB players and once this project reaches fruition its time for a change but I have my eye on an eastern European player that I think has top 10 potential I told her coach that I would only consider if she gained eligibility for GB in fed cup but I now have changed my mind .

Her coach is a former GB Davis cup player and said I do not want her mixing with women GB players because they have got the wrong work ethic he only works with foreign players & I am starting to understand why .

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

Thanks coup

I will stick with Marcus & Lewis and my A1 teams and give it a huge effort but once the individual sponsorships are over I am never going to sponsor a GB player again !

As they say on Dragon's Den I'm out !!!

But will be keen to demonstrate the Rheus monkeys at the LTA what they missed !

indiana · Tennis legend

For the 558th time, Gary ( and please read this time !! ), you go on about how you stand out with all the practical and financial support you are giving Marcus, Lewis and others, but get all this criticism.

1) You have had hardly anything but good feedback on here about that support. We have said that you certainly appear great for the boys and that it is good you are arond.

2) The criticism has quite SEPARATELY been for your forum behavior.

I am not going to go back and produce endless quotes to prove this or draw diagrams, but geez !!

So please stop implying, indeed saying, that we do not appreciate what you are doing or that such as us have no time for independant entrepeneurs like yourself, because it is clearly tosh !

LordBrownof · Futures level

A1 tennis academy wrote:
Disappointed at the amount of criticism I get on this forum when I am one of the very few individuals in Brit tennis that is willing to financially support players and giving up a huge amount of my time free but all I get is stick .
I am now getting complaints from other A1 directors saying surely considering the cynicism on this forum which typifies the lack of support within GB tennis generally there are more worthwhile projects consequently after our current GB tennis project come to fruition we will concentrate on other sports & tennis sponsorship only of foreign players
1) there are many talanted but financially disadavantaged foreign players Eg foreign lady player that has top 10 potential
2) more deserving sports & causes
The forum has been persuasive in its argument and It's now been agreed that any future tennis players to be sponsored by A1 will not be British .

Ooooooh brother.

You seem to think the rest are dumb or, more accurately, can't see the cr*p through the trees (classic mixed metaphor, pls see previous A1 posts)

Congratulations on having money and spending it on tennis, which you clearly love and get lots of enjoyment out of. I prefer to spend my money sending orphans to school in Swaziland, but I guess that's my choice too. That's not to say you should do the same but I'm also not going to congratulate a millionaire for spending money doing something they enjoy, except to say good luck to you.

One thing I've learnt in the workplace is that the way you do business is important. You might want to remember that.

A forum is for expressing opinions and my opinion is I can't keep reading posts from this guy so someone alert me when he's gone. It's sucking the life out of me.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Just curious (and apologies to many for keeping this going !) but, A1, do you think there's a problem with the work ethic of Marcus and Lewis ? Or GB players in general ? Or West European players in general ?

I've been involved with French juniors and agree that the East european players absolutely work their socks off. I'm not sure it's what parents would want or is even always 100% effective but it's quite marked.

But if you have a British player with an excellent work ethic, it would be wrong to penalise him/her bacause you've suddenly decided not to sponsor ANY british player every again, blanket sweeping decision.

And if you don;t mind me saying so, I think you need a PR person. Not full time (too expensive) but maybe part-time, someone from A1, for instance, who could manage the PR for what you're trying to do in tennis. It could come do with a bit of help and could come across a whole heap better (understatement time!)

john · Top national player

I'm calling A1's bluff here. This is not the real Gary Lewis, it can't be. I will now attempt to prove it and probably be proven spectacularly wrong

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

The poster who has supported me has got in wrong about the rankings it's about making a difference and proving that the powers that be at the LTA could not organise a p..s up in a brewery .

I once told a senior excutive at the LTA that the only job he would get at A1 was making the coffee and I was right !

It wasn't Roger Draper he surprised a hostile Sussex AGM saying that it was brilliant what I was doing and be great if we could we have more CEOs of top uk companies financially supporting & mentoring young GB ATP players

It will continue but going to focus on foreign lady players

john · Top national player

A1 tennis academy wrote:
The poster who has supported me has got in wrong about the rankings it's about making a difference and proving that the powers that be at the LTA could not organise a p..s up in a brewery .
I once told a senior excutive at the LTA that the only job he would get at A1 was making the coffee and I was right !
It wasn't Roger Draper he surprised a hostile Sussex AGM saying that it was brilliant what I was doing and be great if we could we have more CEOs of top uk companies financially supporting & mentoring young GB ATP players
It will continue but going to focus on foreign lady players

Guess what. No one cares anymore.

Go away and focus on your foreign lady players. Perhaps then you can go and troll foreignladiestennis.activeboard.com instead of ruining our board

indiana · Tennis legend

Right folk, re any suggestions, implications or whatever that Gary and Troubleshooter are one and the same...

( and any reasonable person can surely see why folk would be suspicious with so many similarities in structure, phraseology, tone etc, quite apart from Troubleshooter suddenly mentioning speaking to Marcus in a post that looked that it could easily have been one of Gary's )

...further to troubleshooter's denials on here, I have received a PM from him assuring me that that is the case and he has basically just got to know Gary and the boys, and yes is supportive of Gary.

Troubleshooter further added to his PM an apparently pasted copy of an email from one of the players to himself ( with all the normal sort of heading and to / from info ) in which, without needing to say so, it is quite clear that the player was addressing this separate individual who he knew, but was most certainly not Gary.

john · Top national player

After a very brief amount of research, I think I was wrong. This really is Gary Lewis, as the odd interview I have found with him contain similar inane ramblings about all-GB doubles pairings and similar boring nonsense that no one cares about

indiana · Tennis legend

John, if it's not the real Gary Lewis, I would imagine the real Gary Lewis, the players, Polly etc would by now be clearly fairly spectacularly annoyed and there is no indication of that.

Just saying...

But yes, I am like the many who are pretty much getting to be past caring, which is partly why I just let folk know what I had received, and now if I am sensible I will divorce myself from this pantomine.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Most replies in a Futures thread out here -

Sweden F2 (Falun) - 2008 : 278
Great Britain F4 (Bath) - 2009 : 278
Great Britain F11 (Newcastle) - 2013 : 275
Great Britain F7 (Bath) - 2013 : 270
Sweden F5 (Falun) - 2007 : 268
Israel F5 (Herzlia) - 2012 : 258
Great Britain F1 (Glasgow) - 2009 : 251
Kuwait F3 (Meshref) - 2013 : 245
Great Britain F12 (Wrexham) - 2008 : 241
Kuwait F2 (Meshref) - 2013 : 227
Great Britain F21 (Loughborough) - 2013 : 227

#BreakYou

As you can see, 3 of the top 11 threads have come after the arrival of A1TA, so he has certainly made things more interesting.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

No sign of George, though, next week in Tipton or Edgbaston after that. Taking a break ?

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

I don't want PR people changIng my image I am happy to be a cross between Brian clough , Alan sugar & Alex ferguson .

I say what I feel but it's honest and from the heart I guess that's more typical of some one from a poor working class

background Compared with your average Middle aged middle class tennis a completely different culture .