Forty-One Seasons

Ann Cottrell has been the professional at a six-court club an hour outside the city since 1985 — four grass, two hard. She was twenty-two when she took it, and it was advertised as a summer position.

She coaches at seven in the morning and again from four. In between she does the courts, because the club has never had a full-time groundsman and she has never quite managed to hand the work to anybody else. We spoke in June, in the mower shed, while she waited for the engine to cool down.

Forty-one years. Was that the plan?

There wasn't a plan. There was a summer contract and a caravan. Then the man who had the job before me didn't come back in September, and nobody advertised it again, and by the time anybody thought to I'd been doing it eighteen months. I don't think there was ever a moment where I said yes.

What does the job actually consist of?

Mowing. If you want the honest answer, mowing. Grass wants cutting three times a week from April, and rolling, and marking, and watering when it's dry and swearing at when it isn't. I coach about twenty-two hours a week. I'd guess I spend more than that on the grass.

Do the members know that?

Some of them think the courts arrive that way. That's fine, honestly. That's the job done properly. Nobody is supposed to notice a court. They only ever notice a bad one.

Best player you've coached?

There was a girl in the nineties who could have gone a long way and didn't want to, and I still think that was the right call and I still think about it. But the ones I'm proudest of aren't the good ones. There's a man called Gerald who came to me at sixty-one having never held a racket. He's seventy-nine now. He plays Thursdays. His serve is a disgrace and he has never missed a Thursday.

What have you changed your mind about?

Almost everything technical. I taught a closed stance for fifteen years because that's what I was taught. I taught children to play the way adults play, which is backwards. And I used to think the serious ones were the ones who'd stay. It's the other way round. The serious ones burn out at nineteen. The ones who stay are the ones who liked the Tuesday night and the drink afterwards.

Is that depressing, from a coach's point of view?

It was when I was thirty. I wanted to produce somebody. Now I think producing somebody is a lottery ticket, and keeping four hundred people playing into their seventies is a job. I know which one I'd rather have spent forty years on.

What do you tell someone who's playing badly?

Depends who. Mostly nothing. Most people playing badly know they're playing badly and want company, not information. If they ask, I'll give them one thing. Never two. Two things is how you ruin somebody's Saturday.

What's the worst part of the year?

February. Nothing grows, nothing dries, the hard courts go green with algae and you scrub them and it's back inside a fortnight. And the accounts. I do the accounts. Nobody mentioned the accounts in 1985.

Will you retire?

I've announced 2028 twice now. Once when it was 2020 and once when it was 2024. There's a girl doing her level two who could take the coaching tomorrow. Nobody wants the mowing. That's the thing that'll keep me here, and it isn't sentiment. Nobody wants the mowing.

The engine had cooled. She went out to do the top two courts before the four o'clock.