‘Friendly’ lawn tennis club named best in the county

A TENNIS club which was established in Caversham more than 100 years ago has been named Berkshire Club of the Year for 2024.

Caversham Lawn Tennis Club received the award from Berkshire Tennis after being voted for by members of clubs throughout the county.

The club in Queensborough Drive includes a clubhouse and nine courts, including five all-weather (clay or tar) ones and four tournament-grade acrylic.

It also has an “air hall” dome which covers two of the courts through the winter and is heated to allow play to continue during the colder months.

Club chairman Peter Newman believes the club’s success is down to both its high performance level and off-court activities.

He said: “The friendliness is a start and we do quite well in the league because we’ve got some top players.

“We’ve got the air hall dome so that in the winter we’ve got a nice playing environment, floodlights and heating — not many clubs have got that. We’ve had that for donkey’s years and it does us proud.

“We do social things as well.”

The social events include a finals day, charity events, quizzes, wine evenings, a Christmas party and Macmillan coffee mornings.

Mr Newman said: “It’s our tradition — it’s what we are. We’ve done that for years and people enjoy it. The committee enjoys it and the members enjoy it.”

Club administrator Tammy Fryer, who has worked at the club for five years, said it was about more than just tennis.

She said: “It’s very social and everybody gets to know everybody else. We always have events for people to join in.

“Everyone’s helpful and there’s always a cup of tea or a drink in summertime when everyone’s out watching the tennis. It’s one big family, really.

“Tennis is a very sociable sport as it’s not like you’re on your own. Everybody comes here and they mingle.”

The club has a strong junior section with about 300 members.

Ms Fryer said: “They range from four all the way up to about 19. A lot of them are social players but we’ve also got a performance group of juniors who like to compete and we’ve got quite a few at county level.

“We’ve just introduced a lot of the 15- and 16-year-olds to playing in the men’s league, so that’s a challenge for them.

“They’re doing amazingly well. We’re uplifting them and telling them to come out and play with everybody and not to be shy.

“We’ve got coaches who love teaching the youngsters.”

The club has about 300 adult players with a range of abilities from those who compete to those who prefer to just play socially.

Ms Fryer said the club had a large increase in members following the coronavirus pandemic when tennis was one of the first sports allowed to restart given its innately socially distanced set-up.

“Just after lockdown, we noticed a big upswing in tennis activity.

“During lockdown everybody was confined to the house and then when that was over, as well as in the last year or two, more working from home has meant that people can play here during the day. We tried to keep a sense of community throughout the lockdowns. We have a couple of members who work within the field of psychology and mental health and another lady who was a business consultant and they put together these little videos which went around to the members.

“Our coaching team put together little videos saying hi to everyone. We kept the communication going with our weekly newsletters and stuff.

“We didn’t not speak to anybody and kept things going.

“Obviously the club was closed and locked up but people were desperate to get back. The minute we could come back, there was strong demand.”

Head coach Ricky Dennis, who has been at the club since 2000, enjoys watching young players develop on and off the court.

He said: “A lot of people always ask if I get bored doing my role, just coaching the same thing time and time again, but the people change.

“You get the kids that come in at age five and then you see them go to secondary school, do their GCSEs and then go off to university, so you’re kind of with them on that journey.

“It’s really good to just see them move through and improve. We had one guy, Marcus Willis, who got to Wimbledon and played Roger Federer. He has popped back a few times for various events we’ve held, which was wicked. It’s very rewarding when you hear stories like that.

“When I first came here, there was another lad who lived just around the corner and went to the local secondary school.

“Every day he was down here hitting against our practice wall and he’d set up his torches to shine so he could actually see, he was so committed.

“He then went off to university in the States and now he’s coaching on the women’s tour and he travels around the world.

“When you hear of those kinds of stories, it’s great to kind of share it.”

Mr Dennis said that tennis was a sport that could be played at any age.

“There was research recently saying racket sport activates a certain part of the mind and helps extends your life,” he said.

Tracey Powell, 63, who lives in Caversham, joined the club 23 years ago after trying tennis on a holiday and deciding she wanted to improve her skills.

She said: “At first everyone ran away and didn’t want to play with me because I was so bad.

“But that was a good thing because it made me determined to get better.

“I had lots of lessons and got into drills and fell in love with tennis. You make friends and, to be honest, when I got divorced it was like a lifeline because I could go to the tennis club and see people, which was brilliant.

“I have a huge social circle from the tennis club.”

Janet Barlow, who also lives in Caversham, has been a member of the club for 33 years.

“I’ve got such good friends here and lots of fantastic memories,” she said.

“It’s a real community for me and a bit like a second home, really.

“I’m quite lucky as when I moved to Reading I was in my twenties and played tennis and when I came here there were a lot of people my age.

“A lot of those same people are still playing as they have carried on.

“I think it’s because we’ve got such a community that we all carry on playing — we sort of spur each other on.”