13th - 15th September - Philadelphia and Lakewood

Prior to our arrival, Assistant Pro and World Number 23 John Lumley had capably forwarded us an email which filled our small bitter hearts with joy. Lynn Penn, a Chemistry Professor and Life Guru, had offered to house us, adding reassuringly that her refrigerator was rarely without a plentiful selection of champagnes and other sparkling wines. True to form, she stood in the street to greet us, clutching a flute of possibly refrigerated champagne or other sparkling wine. We were ushered into her beautiful row house and given colour-coordinated pastel loungewear suits and slippers. There was also a friendly sheep. He was called Sheep and he was very photogenic. 

The Philadelphia Tennis and Racquets Club is an improbable creation. It houses, amongst other things, the earliest non-ground level swimming pool in America, a useful and popular barber shop, ample and spacious guest rooms, branded and fragrant handwash, a vodka luge ice sculpture of Lady Godiva and at least 18 staircases. In the lift we heard the unmistakable rattle of a Maximuscle chocolate protein shake accompanied by a gentle Mancunian rumble, and our starved hearts soared. Had Craigy Greenhalgh been lured by the promise of Philly cheesesteak and Philly fillies to make the thousand-mile Philgrimage to see us? Alas no, it was a second-rate smelly squash pro who promised neither basket of backhands, basket of forehands nor indeed the coveted basket of back walls. 

The creators of the court itself seemed to have missed a crucial memo explaining that a) real tennis is a different game from lawn tennis and b) is not played with a bouncy rubber ball that launches itself off the back wall to land First Gal at the gentlest of Audrey’s caresses. Pro and World Number 63 Rob Whitehouse took one look at our stubby bronzed legs and unfairly presumed that we would barely make the Fleur at a sluggish crawl, let alone dive coltishly for the First Gallery.  Rashly, he doubled our handicap advantage.  Our pride stung, we spurned his patronising offer of a Gatorade and galvanized ourselves for victory on tap water alone. Sophie had a clammy tussle with Auxiliary Fireman Dmitri Karapelou; Audrey took on Estonian Venture Capitalist Alvar Soosaar; Izzy made sweet sweet poetry with PhD Biologist Elizabeth Browning; and Clare wiped the smile off freshman Matthew Angelides’ cherubic face. 

Oxford 6 – 0 Philadelphia

Sophie vs Dmitri: 10-5

Audrey vs Alvar: 8-1

Izzy vs Liz: 8-3

Clare vs Matthew: 8-7

Sophie & Audrey vs Alvar & Dmitri: 6-3

Clare & Izzy vs Liz & Matthew: 6-5

Alvar compensated for his team’s devastating loss with artfully-prepared deli sandwiches, fluent French and a kindly offer of business career advice to would-be medic Audrey, which would have been better suited to would-be businesswoman Izzy. In the meantime Sophie and Clare “got lost” in a winding staircase marked “Swimming Pool Only” and, to their surprise and delight, stumbled across a swimming pool! Surprised and delighted, they took a surprisingly delightful selfie and convinced a surprised but delighted functionary that they were merely passing through on their way to the ladies locker room. Alvar took a select party to see the splendour of the club’s basement which boasted a possible Rodin sculpture of eight men rowing in a cavernous trout, a mallard-themed room to which duck-enthusiast Clare was not privy, and a German beer hall.

We had meant to set off for New Jersey at 3pm, but at half past three Clare was still wiping angry tears from her tiny piggy eyes, cursing her lack of devastating forehands and relishing her own inadequacy. Mingling her tears with the driving rain, she was driven militantly to the car by an irascible Sophie and a coolly efficient Audrey. Izzy’s contribution was unmemorable at this point. With thirty minutes to cover a ninety-minute journey to Lakewood, we took the speed limit as a loose guideline and screeched past shocked Hasidic Jew after shocked Hasidic Jew at an unorthodox and irreligious 96 miles per hour. The fortified papist enclave of Georgian Court University, capably managed by the Sisters of Mercy (in this case neither departed nor gone), instilled us with Catholic guilt and ensured that on our return journey we genuflected to the speed limit and genu-reflected on our sins with genuine contrition. Once out of the car, we circumnavigated Jay Gould’s mammoth casino complex with increasing impatience and dampness. A kindly functionary reminiscent of Andrew hastily covered up the piles of white powder we discovered upstairs and chivvied us downstairs to the dusty subterranean tennis court. On our way we passed a drab Student Support Centre, an indoor polo field-cum-ballroom-cum-basketball court and cheery signs advertising Justice, Devotion, Honour, Respect and Chastity. Our kind of place! 

In preparation for our visit, we had exchanged an absurd number of emails with American Etonian and International Man of Mystery Schuyler Wickes. Having pushed him to his Wickes end, we were saddened but not surprised when he was called away on business. We hailed Mary, our substitute guide for the afternoon, and bade her tell us the history of this morally confusing place. She explained that, tired of being cooped up on rainy days, Former World Number One and Olympic Gold Medallist Jay Gould had splashed the dirty millions of his father (and 9th worst American CEO of all time) on a sports complex that Iffley Road could only dream of. Impressed by this DIY attitude, we filled our personalised Georgian Court platypus water bottles without the help of a kindly functionary, gamely fixed the broken net and uncomplainingly schlepped the heavy ball sack from the cupboard where it had lain for the last 125 years. Accustomed to a rather higher standard of indoor lighting, we bemoaned the dim and dusty interior but soon knocked the cobwebs off the penthouse with a few well-placed railroads. Lacking opponents, we had no outlet for our characteristic ruthlessness and were forced to resort to vanity. Many carefully staged videos later, Clare shattered the camera by tanking a wayward volley at Audrey’s head. Clearly it was time to go home.

Returning to the Penn household, we had a day in the city in which to convince Audrey that Philly Cheesesteaks were not only edible in the technical sense but also desirable. Yet again the Ice Queen with her fear of cheap (m)eats prevailed and we all had expensive deli sandwiches and salads for lunch. Like true scholar athletes with a nose for the late Impressionists, we sniffed out the Barnes Collection; and like true scholar athletes with a nose for late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century bronzes, we sniffed out the Rodin Museum.  The picture you see below was snapped with great daring and bravura, as Sophie sustained two bouts of angry telling-off from the knuckle-cracking functionary (reminiscent of Andrew) to take a snap of this stuffy Victorian man’s erotic daydream:

Audrey swiftly tired of walking at a contemplative tourist’s pace and demanded that we visit a cake shop on the other side of town which closed in precisely nine minutes’ time.  It was half an hour’s walk.  Sophie, Izzy and Clare were terrified of her retribution but finally rebelled and collapsed into a bus shelter in exhaustion. Drained of salts and spilling lactic acid from every orifice, we stumbled back into the grateful embrace of Lynn’s grilled chicken feast. Somewhat revived, we finished our time off Rittenhouse Square in the mediocre Sunday ambience of the Black Sheep bar.