We had an absolutely fantastic event. Starting off with far more people than we thought would come (don't they ever get organised) and nearly all of them in their pyjamas with some quite attractive visitors from Riverside, quite a crowd actually. You couldn't see the shuttle for the steam from those sweaty pyjamas.
It quietened down a bit around 5am but kept going. Saturday was quite special. Starting off with an absolute throng of entries for the Generations Tournament it steamed along in a hectic sort of way up until 4pm ish when the pros turned up. Aamir vs Rajiv in a singles exhibition match was exhilirating, fast, humourous and impressive. The crowd got a fantastic display of attack, defence, movement, power, accuracy and tumbling net shots as well as a good deal of deception and light-hearted banter with the referees. Top marks for both Aamir and Rajiv for putting on a great show for the kids and adults alike and we had some excellent refereeing from John Herdman and Ian Ross.
This was followed with more top players Toby & Matthew Honey and Nathan Rice taking on the top county players in Middlessex and Herts and I then had to get some sleep cos I was just a bit tired.
Saturday evening and Sunday morning was packed again up until about 3am ish and then was slow until 8am ish when people started coming in again.
Lee Jae Bok turned up about lunchtime and had the victims entranced with his innovative coaching techniques. There was only supposed to be a select few but it turned out to be more than a few.
We finally finished off with a fast and furious battle and at midnight closed the event. It may be a long time before something like this happens again.
What I am impressed with is that beginners, kids, adults, pensioners, club players, county players, international players all turned up and enjoyed it. There was one common link, badminton, and it united all of us in a friendly way. Long live badminton, and roll on another Badmintonathon.