A year ago, as we embarked on our fourth annual campaign to crowdfund The Tennis Podcast, I wrote a blog called A Crowdfunding Journey.

Everything in there applies today - our commitment to produce the best podcasts we possibly can, our determination to keep the wonderful Matt Roberts with us and progress his career, our refusal to accept sponsorship from betting companies, and our motivation to end the next year with our Kickstarter backers feeling proud and justified in supporting this show to keep going, growing, and hopefully improving.

They are about the only things that have stayed the same, however, and I’m sure that will be the case for many of you in this cold, turbulent, unsettling year.

Yesterday, we recorded a podcast reviewing the first half of 2020, and it was a sobering reminder of how quickly, and jarringly, life changed for everyone, and tennis came to an almost immediate halt in March.

As the months went by, and we launched Tennis Re-Lived to fill the gap in our production plans, and indeed lives, the correspondence we started to receive from listeners all over the world acted as a small window into what was happening out there.

Diane in California, ‘a mom and grandma staying away from my kids and grandkids’ because of the pandemic’.

Maitena, a winemaker in Melbourne, ‘harvesting grapes and trying to make sense of the world’s craziness.’

Bróna in Dublin, who was working in a hospital and wrote to us during the first lockdown to describe the tension and uncertainty all around her. She needed some escapism.

Simon (not Briggs), who sent us one of the funniest e-mails we received, telling us what he liked about the podcast, including his description of my ’always optimistic, sunny, annoyingly upbeat, but totally out of social touch 90’s dvd box set mentality’, Catherine’s ‘sharp, slightly annoyed, rapier-like tongue and wit’, and Matt - ‘wise beyond his years; profound, thoughtful and all with a brilliant penchant for the witty one liner.’ There was even a reference to ‘the lugubrious Simon Briggs, stumbling in every now and again, making slightly off colour remarks and sharing way too much information about his underwear situation.’

Some months later, Simon wrote to us again to say hello, but there would be no jokes this time. He had recently lost two close relatives due to Covid-19 in a ‘tough few months.’

These are just a small sample of the many emails and messages we received from listeners over the course of the year, many with a common theme - the challenges, anxiety and in some case tragedy present in their lives as a result of the pandemic.

Our hearts went out to them, as they go out to all of you who might be struggling. You are not alone.

We have felt it too, in our own individual ways, and like you, the podcast medium has been a refuge for us - both as people heavily invested in producing them, and in listening to others. I discovered a love for NFL (or ‘men bending over’, as Catherine calls it) a couple of years ago, and have been listening to the Around The NFL podcast without fail every night since the pandemic took hold, as I try to get to sleep and block out my worries. The four presenters of that show - Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling, the latter of whom is currently suffering with cancer but still appearing on the show) - take me into a world separate from my own that I find comforting. They argue, debate and joke about their sport, tease each other and have heart-to-heart conversations about their own lives. I don’t know them, but I feel like I know them.

From the correspondence we receive, it seems the same is true for some of you with us, and I regard that as our biggest triumph.

Thank you for listening to us this year, for the kind messages and of course the crowdfunding support.