The LTA is reporting another significant year-on-year increase in participation among adults and juniors across the UK, and most of this growth comes from parks clubs like St Ann’s Tennis.
Over two million people play parks tennis every year. There are 1,753 parks tennis venues in the country, with at total of 5,233 courts.
Five years ago, only a tiny fraction of Parks League players were even registered with the LTA. The vast majority of players (the Parks League has about 700 registered participants) were largely invisible beyond the borders of B&H.
Then, around 2017, clubs like Queens, Hove and Dyke switched from being council operated tennis facilities to becoming independent, self-managing parks clubs, and they registered their memberships with the LTA (which allows them to use ClubSpark booking system).
That added hundreds of ‘new’ players to the LTA system. But it was not a fake increase. Parks participation in our city numbers were boosted by significant court improvements at Parks venues, and the post-Covid bounce in 2020-2021. Clubs that were struggling for members suddenly saw their memberships triple. When St Ann’s launched in 2020, we were hoping for 100 members in year 1, rising to 200 members in year 2. Instead, we reached 300 in 12 months. In 2015, Queens had 60 members. Now they have 260 members and a 60 player waiting list.
So it is pretty clear where that national UK-wide growth is coming from: the parks. Brighton & Hove has, perhaps, a uniquely vibrant parks tennis culture. The Parks League has been going since 1930 – 40 teams, four divisions – and there are more public tennis courts in our city (64 courts) than there are in Manchester(47). It is not just B&H which is benefitting – there are stories of similar uplifts in places like Glasgow, Hull and Eastbourne.
Given all this growth, you may think that the next British champion could conceivably come from Parks tennis. In fact, it’s happening already. Players like Ivan Pineda, who won the Grade 4 Open Men’s Singles we hosted last September, aged just 13, learnt tennis at St Ann’s. Isabella Kreel , 15, a county champion in her age group, has been learning at St Ann’s with David Ince for several years.
Over in Eastbourne, Mason Wimalasena has come through at the Tennis Cafe in Gildredge Park, under coach Francis Mackey. Mason was recently selected to the GB under 11s. Pasha Hrytskiv, 14, from Ukraine, who’s won three Grade 3 boys titles in recent months, practices every week at Queens Park Tennis Club. Away from Sussex, Paul Jubb – the US College champion in 2019 – learnt his tennis at his local parks club in Hull (Pelican Park). An orphan, he grew up on the council estate next to the courts.
Of course, a lot of these bright young things also do coaching and competitions at private clubs. A top prospect will be snapped up by a private club so fast it would make your head spin. But, in a healthy sense, the lines are getting blurred between ‘Public’ and ‘Private’. Some private facilities have coaching programmes which are markedly inferior to what you would find at, say, Hove or Queens. And the growing numbers taking part in Parks Tennis will, over time, build a bigger market for private clubs to exploit. Growth across the board helps everybody, and cheaper, more accessible venues like St Ann’s help contribute to rising participation numbers, which is the most reliable indicator of future tennis success.
It’s that crucial first exposure to the game – organised sessions. coaching, competition – where Parks facilities play such an important role. Ion and Renee Raducanu were both Parks tennis players, who encouraged their daughter Emma to take up the game. Venus & Serena Williams famously learnt their craft on the public tennis courts of Los Angeles.
At St Ann’s, we operate outreach programmes with local schools like Brunswick Primary and Little Forest Nursery. Head Coach Jimmy Smith spends significant time visiting schools across the city running pop-up ‘red ball’ groups for young players. I coach weekly red ball sessions at the Crew Club in Whitehawk, where there is no shortage of talent if you can prize them off the football field. David Ince and Petra Sedova run junior sessions at St Ann’s on Saturday and Sunday mornings, plus several weeks of holiday camps in Spring and Summer. With help from Ben Pugh, Buckingham Park Tennis has been doing a fantastic job on Saturday mornings, where the juniors programme has gone from zero to 85 in two years. Vanessa Nickerson over at Preston Park runs the busy Tennis Tigers, now in its 23rd year. They have 160 kids a week taking red, orange, green and yellow ball classes. Sam Mills won the LTA Tennis Sussex Tennis For All award for his work with young people in Hollingbury, who tell us that “Sam has extended our coaching offering to include several local schools, first groups and disability groups.”
Queens Park Tennis Club can boast over 100 registered juniors with their programme going back several years. One of their juniors has just been selected to the Under 9s County squad. Queens also produce seven young qualified LTA Level 1 coaches helping out every summer, all of whom have graduated from QPTC’s own red ball programmes.
Are private clubs not helping with all this stuff too? Yes and no. Several run successful performance programmes for young people, but they’re not very good at finding new players beyond their existing memberships. LTA Youth Start is a national initiative to get young people into tennis by offering a six lesson course for £36, plus t-shirt, racquet and balls. I think it’s one of the best initiatives the LTA has come up with in recent years. But the volume of LTA Youth Start courses at private clubs is pitifully low. (Tessa Bass at Preston LTC is an honourable exception). Overall, the vast majority of LTA Youth Start courses offered in B&H came from Parks clubs, because Private clubs just cannot see any value in running cheap introductory courses. (See LTA Youth Start course, below, at Buckingham Park)
As well as juniors coaching, our city can now offer a very decent competitive tennis programme for young people. This is a vital requirement for developing high quality tennis players, both juniors and adults. In football terms, it’s the difference between a kick in the park and an actual official match with white lines, goal posts and a referee. Whereas parents once had to drive up the M23 to find a LTA tournament, there are now several high ranking (and low ranking) tournaments taking place on Parks courts in Brighton & Hove, something unheard of even four years ago. Hove Park and Hollingbury have both recently staged large scale LTA-sanctioned youth tournaments, Queens has hosted several LTA tournaments of different grades, and – as you will have noticed – St Ann’s hosted over a dozen competitions last year, from Under 8s red ball right up to an Open Men’s Grade 4 of outstanding quality.
Jimmy Smith says: “We want kids to have a fun and a healthy experience learning and competing. We look after the bottom end of the pyramid, introducing the game to as many kids as possible. Our professional aim, what drives us, is enjoyment.”
At St Ann’s, elite performance tennis is not our primary motivation. We can leave that stuff to the professionals. A happy membership, fun tournaments, and full club sessions are their own rewards. But we like to think St Ann’s – alongside our fellow Parks clubs in Brighton & Hove – is doing its bit to boost the participation numbers in Sussex, and to produce the tennis champions of the future.
