[1] Eric Mitchell has been a member of the Moana Tennis Club for more than 40 years and a keen player for more than 70 years. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Eric Mitchell has been an active member of the Moana Tennis Club for more than 40 of his 88 years, but still enjoys the game as much as when he was a teenager.
Mitchell, a life member of the club, said he has been playing doubles twice a week at the club for years, but can still work his position like he use to.
"I can still play the baseline," Mitchell said.
While he had been playing for up to three hours in earlier years, now he would play for an hour and a-half, he said.
Mitchell said when he told his physiotherapist about his tennis he said, 'I can't believe what you do'."
While he would play on a Saturday afternoon, sometimes he would have calls earlier asking him for a game, he said.
"They still ring. They say I play a pretty good game."
When asked what the secret has been in keeping fit, Mitchell said he has been keeping his place tidy.
"I keep the lawns tidy."
"I've been blessed with my health."
Mitchell said his game has not changed much over the years.
"Same two balls, different racket."
Mitchell started playing tennis at the Wakari Tennis Club where he played until the age of 18.
When World War 2 broke out in 1939, Mitchell was deployed into an artillery regiment.
"Two days after I was 21, I was on a ship to Egypt," he said.
"I was in an artillery unit in Italy and went through to Trieste."
He had been in Europe for one and a-half years.
"The war in Europe finished in Trieste and I was there."
"We had a bit of trouble with the Yugoslavs, but that eventually fizzled out."
He returned to New Zealand in 1946 but stayed with the army before he was discharged, aged 23, in 1946.
He had married a year later.
He had continued to play at the Wakari club until the 1950s.
"Unfortunately the [Wakari] club was on school grounds and eventually the club folded."
Mitchell got into Moana when he had been searching for a new club.
"The first one I went to was Moana. I found Moana and stayed there," he said.
"The club today is in a beautiful spot."
It has not all been all smooth sailing for the tennis club, however.
In the 1970s, vandals virtually demolished the clubhouse.
"They smashed everything inside, they stripped the wall. Only the walls were left standing," he said.
The club had rebuilt the clubhouse in concrete, with armoured glass and a forestry lock on the door.
"That's been successful," he said.
"We've used concrete to keep the vandals out."
Mitchell was also involved in starting a badminton club, with games played at the Wakari community hall.
He would play with another member of the Moana Tennis Club, John Barsby, and former editor of the The Evening Star, Frank Nicol.
The Moana Tennis Club today has more than 40 members.
- Andrew Mackay
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