About Gary

I started playing tennis in the 1970s, it was a different game back then, wooden rackets and whites were the order of the day. I did my first coaching course in the early 1980s when I started my career as an aircraft technician in the Royal Air Force. I went on to play competitively at interstation level at every unit I was posted to apart from RAF Leuchars (they didn’t have a team when I arrived and I had broken my leg playing football for the Squadron when they wanted to start one).  After I left the RAF in 2005, being busy with working all hours, I hadn’t picked a racket up in over ten years before I joined Witney Tennis Club! That was in 2016, I am now a member of the club’s committee and I have adopted the philosophy of doing things for the fun of it, and that includes careers as well. I did some technical instructing in the RAF and enjoyed that, I love tennis, so an obvious choice was to teach tennis! I am obviously not as quick around the court these days, but I have plenty of knowledge and experience to impart as well as bags of enthusiasm! I started my coaching courses in 2019 and am now a level 2 coaching assistant and plan to reach level three in the very near future.

 

Gary’s other interests include:

 

• Football – I am a member of Carterton Social Football Club.

• Running – I am a former member of Witney Roadrunners and have completed countless half marathons and finished three full ones too (London Marathon twice).

• Cycling – I love to get out on a bicycle when I can, longest ride was about 120 miles.

• Swimming – I completed a virtual cross channel swim in a swimming pool a couple of years ago.  I had eight weeks to do it in, but did it in four, so I swam back, in three weeks!

• Triathlon – The three sports above naturally marry up to triathlon.  I have done lots of sprint distance triathlons and finished three Olympic distance events (1500m swim, 40km bike and 10k run)

• Painting miniature figures – yeah, I bet that one got you?  Well I have to do something sedentary!

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Qualifications and Training

• LTA Level 2 Coaching Qualification

• LTA Accredited Coach

• Safeguarding and Protection Trained

• Emergency First Aid at Work

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