Grassroots Development
Over the last 2 years the tennis ‘scene’ has increased in size and is getting better funding now than ever before. There are now 7 tennis clubs around Cambridge each offering memberships and chances to play in men’s, women’s and junior’s competitions. Probably the biggest club in Cambridge, The Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club, has over 5000 members. This huge growth can mainly be traced back to the ease of access that most of these clubs have. They all offer very affordable membership which most families can afford which opens up the world of tennis to a much wider range of people. The Cambridge area is also participating in many schemes aimed to increase participation in sport. One of these is the Physical Education School Sports Club Links (PESSCL) programme. This is type of funding offered to those clubs which have shown they are capable of developing themselves into a club which offers a lot to children. There is also the Active Sports Programme being initiated in Cambridge. This makes up to £16,000 available to clubs to improve their facilities so they can include diasablity tennis and events with coaching programmes specifically for those with disabilities. If the clubs do improve this much then other grants are made available to them. Not only are there these programmes designed to create funding for different tennis associations but Cliff Richard also created the ‘Cliff Richard Tennis Foundation’. His beliefs are that every child should have the opportunity to play tennis, irrespective of background, colour or creed. Established in 1991, The Cliff Richard Tennis Foundation is a registered charity with a mission to take tennis direct to children in state primary schools, encouraging as many children as possible to develop an interest in the game. Through his over 300,000 children have been introduced to tennis and this year the Trail will visit some 100 schools, reaching a further 15,000 children. The charity provides primary schools, across the UK, with free equipment and follow-on coaching. With the fundraising campaign, , the aim is to take tennis to even more children, with new initiatives being launched later this year which will make tennis accessible to everyone.
Additional Agencies and Bodies
Team GB is currently sponsored by company called ‘Marsh’ which fund their Davis Cup team and their Fed Cup team. They also have a sponsorship deal with ‘Ariel’ who are currently trying to raise a new generation of tennis. There is a major advantage here as this means the sport does not heavily rely on lottery funding as a main source for grants and extra money. Also because tennis is becoming much more popular there is no worry that these two big companies will suddenly pull their investments out without any warning. The LTA does receive a huge amount of money from Sport England (approx. £16.5 million), which is used to support key tennis clubs identified through the LTA’s Club Vision Programme.
Gender and Disability Issues
There are not that many issues relating to gender in Cambridge. Nearly all the clubs in the area have made the effort to make sure there are equal opportunities for men and women when it comes to joining as a member. There are numerous teams for women to compete in and there are no specific times where they cannot play or participate. This also applies to those women that want to coach tennis. There are many simple ways in which they can gain the qualifications needed to become a full time coach. The main association which promotes Women’ Tennis is called ‘GB Tennis Girls’ which is a non-profit organisation which use fundraising as a way of generating enough money to distribute to local clubs.
The main national organisation that supports Tennis in Britain for disabled people is the ‘Dan Maskell Tennis Trust’. The three areas of disability that are covered through the British Tennis Foundation's Disabilities Programme are wheelchair tennis, deaf tennis and tennis for people with learning disabilities.
The Trust also financially assists schemes organised for disability groups. However, in Cambridge and many other local areas there is not a full year round program that supports disabled tennis. In a lot of clubs disabled players are not given as much opportunities to play as able bodied players. There is usually only a couple of set times for them to play in per week. Also there are only 3 world ranking disabled tennis tournaments in the UK. The only way this could be improved is to try and give the sport better advertising to those disabled people that don’t know much about the sport. There is already quite a lot of money being put into disable tennis and is being distributed around the country which is significantly improving the sport all the time.
Evaluation
Overall, tennis is quite well provided for at both local and national level. There is suddenly more money being invested in the sport and since the shift of focus from county to club level there is more and more opportunities opening up for young club players. There are a lot of courts around but not that many indoor courts, which is quite a big problem in the UK due to the bad weather. The one key issue that needs to be addressed at a local level is the amount of resources disabled people have at their disposal. Clubs need to make more plying time available to disabled people and need to get more coaches that are able to teach the sport to disabled players. Although there is currently a big push to find more young talent that could be the face of future national tennis, at the moment there is not that many world class British tennis players which has been shown by the continuous failure of any British players to win a Grand Slam.
