So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell? Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here”
- Pink Floyd
As every 12 months which pass at ever increasing and frightening light speed, we now write the year 2025. I first visited the Algarve in 1983 with my father who was looking for a suitable place reminiscent of his beloved Africa to take very early retirement.
I was to return to a still-unspoilt Praia da Rocha many times, often working at our newly-built family restaurant Al Borboleta in nearby Porto de Lagos during summer holidays.
When I finally arrived here attempting to turn my frequent visits into a permanent stay still last century, nay millennium (!), the place was in many ways very different from today.
Back in 1997, everything was somehow much easier, more relaxed. A pint cost 200 Escudos (€1), a pack of 20 cigarettes 380 Escudos (€1.90) and the monthly rent of the first spacious, two-bedroom apartment my sister and I shared in Bemposta, half-way between Portimão and Alvor, was the equivalent of €200.
The seasons were still reliable, it only rained in February and November, the expat community was relatively small compared with today, there were plenty of interesting jobs available and evading taxes was a sport universally enjoyed and largely ignored by the authorities.
My first gainful employment was with the Divers Cove scuba diving base in Quinta do Paraíso, near Carvoeiro, earning various PADI qualifications whilst cleaning and taking care of equipment as well as accompanying up to three dives a day on the job.
Although I enjoyed those six months and the nightly stopovers at the then very popular Jo’s Bar in Ferragudo on the way home, life under water was not really for me.
I next found myself selling bespoke cork products ranging from pens to waistcoats and handbags in Alvor’s at-the-time only cork shop until, in spring 1998, an advert in the still fledgling Resident led me to an interview with the leaseholder Andreas Weiglein at the Pestana Alvor Praia Tennis Club – the rest is history, as they say, but back to that in a moment.
Maintaining five clay courts is a full-time job, but I still found the time and energy to write for the now defunct GoodLife magazine, which, in turn, prompted this paper to offer me their weekly sports page as well as the “Is it just ME” column you are still reading today.
At the height of my journalistic activity, I wrote this type of article twice monthly as well as a football, sports and bi-annual World Cup or European Championship page on a weekly basis. I had also attracted the attention of Barry Hatton, chief of the Associated Press Lisbon office, who regularly commissioned me to cover major events in the Algarve ranging from the women’s football annual Algarve Cup for the American market, the Penina Portuguese Golf Open, the Madeleine McCann disappearance and the George Galloway controversy as well as the recurring, and at times very serious, forest fires.
However, the Portuguese paradise began to gradually decline heralded by the introduction of the Euro on January 1, 1999. Within six months, prices had virtually doubled whilst earnings remained the same. Not long after, the internet began to take over almost every aspect of our daily lives, forcing the publishing sector amongst others, as well as news reporting, to undergo drastic changes and reinvent themselves.
Eventually, most of my previous work became redundant and I lost a large chunk of my income – thankfully, the World Wide Web did not affect the physical aspect of sports, and the focus of my attention shifted back to the aforementioned tennis club.
For Portugal, things became much worse with the advent of the economic depression 10 years later and subsequent Covid crisis, but, during the early 2000s, life was still good. Pestana had three professionally-run – the directors were all experienced industry graduates who had served their apprenticeships internationally – hotels in the immediate vicinity of Alvor, the flagship Alvor Praia, Delfim and Dom João II.
Tennis was probably at the height of its popularity and even Pestana founder and group chairman Dionísio Pestana in the company of financial director Peter Booth and chief development officer José Roquette were visitors and players every summer.
We enjoyed many chats under the ample shade of the surrounding pine trees – now drastically cut back – while watching Dionísio’s three sons, Lourenço, Manuel and Vasco, grow up on the courts to become proficient players under our tutelage.
Sadly, that time too came to an end as the Pestana operation expanded both locally – the Alvor Park, South Beach and now sold-again Alvor Blue were added one by one – and worldwide and I have not seen or heard from any of those worthies since those days.
About 15 years ago, I assumed the management of the club together with my friend and coach Valentine Tayles under an initial five-year contract and the subsequent years were very good to us. Eventually, Val’s knees forced him to retire, and former Portuguese junior No2 Daniel Davis took over teaching duties while running his family-owned Jacaranda restaurant in nearby Praia do Vau, and I was even able to employ two other friends, Debbie and Gordon, on a part-time basis, to help run the business.
One day, out of the blue, I was called into the then hotel director’s office – I think it was in 2016 – and asked to leave in order to make way for a bigger company to take over the facilities. Very much taken aback, I pointed out that my contract was valid for another year, managed to hang on for twice that period with the help of a solicitor acquaintance after having been handed a totally unreasonable ultimatum, until I was finally served proper notice within the correct time period and Sunball Tennis moved in.
I had previously written to the owner, Frank Henze, and asked to stay on in one capacity or other and we struck up a good rapport, both of us originally hailing from Hamburg in Germany. I became the ‘éminence grise’, overseeing the transition whilst still caring for the upkeep of the five clay courts and maintaining good relations with our many regular tennis guests.
Although having seen my income cut drastically again, all seemed well until Pestana decided to also discontinue their relationship with Sunball early last year. First, they took two courts away back in March 2024 and ‘planted’ them with solar panels; then, at the beginning of November, finally made us aware of their decision to finish with tennis all together and construct a multi-sports pitch and two padel courts administered by them and exclusively for the use of Hotel Alvor Praia guests – and that was the end of my 28-year tenure at the club without so much as a “thank you” or “goodbye”.
The Pestana Group has always prided itself as being ‘one big family’, but I am afraid that is no longer the case. In the 1990s, the group expanded to the Algarve and, in 1998, began its internationalization, opening the chain’s first hotel in Mozambique.
Today, three decades later, it owns and manages more than 100 hotels and resorts spread across four brands: Pestana Hotels & Resorts, Pousadas de Portugal, Pestana Collection Hotels and CR7 Lifestyle Hotels. In total, it offers 12,000 rooms. In addition, it also operates and manages golf courses, real estate developments and also owns the Madeira Casino and the Madeira Beer Company.
With a fortune valued at €1.75 billion, Dionísio Pestana is today the sixth richest man in the country, according to Forbes Portugal.
In Alvor, his partly all-inclusive hotels are probably the biggest employer of seasonal unskilled labour in the borough of Portimão, most of whom is on six months’ contracts forcing them to claim unemployment benefit during the winter, facts which have prompted many small business owners to refer to Pestana’s overwhelming presence locally as ‘the cancer of Alvor’.
A long time ago, I felt proud of being part of this ‘family’ – today I am an outcast, orphaned along with many others whose contributions are now deemed surplus to requirements.
The next step in my Algarve life is a change of tack in the acquisition of the Frog. Originally a video rental shop I coincidentally used on a regular basis when I first moved here, it soon closed with the advent of DVDs and was converted into a bar called the Cavern by now long-time friend Colin Willis. It became a popular watering hole and when Colin moved on, it was taken over and renamed the Dog House (‘where being in trouble is worth the punishment!’) by Mike and Linda Paice who maintained the pub’s quirky reputation for many years.
More recently, the place underwent several unsuccessful changes in management until João Marques revived its fortunes over the past two years – now it’s my turn and, on that note, I would like to wish all of our readers a very happy New Year. Cheers!
By Skip Bandele
|| features@algarveresident.com
Skip Bandele escaped to the Algarve almost 25 years ago and has been with the Algarve Resident since 2003. His writing reflects views and opinions formed while living in Africa, Germany and England as well as Portugal.
