Nobody could remember whether Thorndon's second team had ever made it into Premier 2, so it was a big campaign for us. We were bolstered in pre-season by the arrival of Richard Wallace, who had been touting his services around the Premier 2 teams but took a liking to the scrappers at Thorndon and signed up.
In true Wellington fashion our first match of the season, at home to Titahi Bay, was rained off. TB were keen to play despite the courts being underwater, which led to Brian being forced into a futile attempt at clearing 3 inches of surface water from the astro courts. Eventually he explained to TB that we had British players on the team (myself and Richard) who just couldn't be persuaded to play in a swamp. Then the rain started again and everyone was finally able to agree it wasn't going to happen.
The rematch happened on a perfect Friday night, still at Thorndon. Kris and I were paired together for the first time and had a solid 6-2 6-2 doubles win against Pierre/Molnar. It gradually became clear that TB's fourth player wasn't going to show up so we got the second doubles by walkover.
I had a tough singles against big-hitting Jason Pierre, who also turned out to have a tricky moonball sliced backhand game to fall back on, but got through it 6-3 7-5. Kris had a hard fought 7-6 7-5 win against Molnar to keep his long unbeaten streak going. And Chris 'Epic' Patete came through 6-4 4-6 7-5 against Dale Keith.
Poor Richard, on his debut for us, didn't get a game as his opposite number hadn't shown up. But he showed great team spirit by hanging around to support us in the dark and cold, instead of racing away for drinks in town.
So we kicked off with a 6-0 win, which was a big confidence booster for the season to come. Our target was to finish top four (out of eight) and make it to the Premier One promotion league after Xmas.
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