100 Years of Creigiau Tennis Club

By Amanda Powell

ON June 12 1922, 15 people met in Creigiau to form a village tennis club.
Beautifully-handwritten minutes record how Colonel Mervyn Wingfield (owner of the Great Barrington Estate in the Cotswolds and a Creigiau landowner) became the club’s first president.
The chairman was the Rev. T Williams and the club was originally called St David’s Tennis Club.
Over the next century, through the Great Depression, World War Two, the swinging sixties and of course, a global pandemic, the club has had its shares of ups and downs.
From keeping the grass courts playable to terrible weather and coming close to extinction several times, the club is now in better shape than ever.
In 2022 Creigiau Tennis Club welcomes players of all ages, including to our thriving junior section. 
We have plans for floodlights on all three courts and there’ll be celebrations throughout this very special year.
The party starts with a centenary buffet at Creigiau Golf Club on Saturday, March 26.

What do we know about the history of Creigiau Tennis Club?

Creigiau Tennis Club players and officials, probably in the late 1930’s. Picture courtesy of Colin Davies

Four original books of handwritten minutes are a compelling illustration of the club’s past.
They paint a vivid picture of life in Creigiau. 
In the early years, there’s more talk of genteel fundraising dinners, dances and card games known as whist drives than tennis itself.
A pianist played the music for those ‘roaring 20s’ dances and we can only imagine the Creigiau Tennis club ladies performing the Charleston in their flapper dresses.   
Today, the club combines social events with plenty of sport for all ages and Creigiau Tennis Club had a very successful summer season in 2021, despite the pandemic.
The women were runners-up in Division 1 in the South Wales League and the men won Division 8 (It was the first time Creigiau had had a men's team for around 15 years).
The current winter season sees two mixed teams, a men's team and a women's veterans’ side.

Where were the tennis courts in the 1920’s?

Tennis being played in Creigiau in the club's early years

Players originally hit balls over the net on grass courts behind Creigiau Church Hall.
But, once the club had been formed, the committee was looking for more land, and built courts on “a small portion of Hotel field” – in other words, a field near what is now the Creigiau Inn off Cardiff Road. 
The club was able to lease the courts from the hotel for a “generous” price of two guineas (the equivalent of £2.10 or £122.10 with inflation since then).
There’s no mention in the minutes of actual tennis competition until 1925 when “the question of a club tournament was discussed.”
A Miss Seale and a Mr Christopher won the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles competitions that year.

How much was membership in 1922? And how much 100 years later?

Membership was 10/6 in 1922 (about 53p in today’s money, or £26.55 allowing for inflation in the last 100 years).
By July 1923, this modest amount wasn’t enough and the club was in debt.
“It was passed that we get up a prize-drawing in aid of the Tennis Club,” say the minutes from 20 July 1923.
A century later, adult membership for the 2022-23 season is £90 if paid on or before 30 April 2022. 

Club trophies go back to the 1930's

Where did the tennis club committee and players meet? And what was the impact of World War 2?

Hadyn Davies, who was a club champion in the pre-war period. Picture courtesy of Colin Davies

Many of the meetings were held in “the hall” which we presume was Creigiau Church Hall, built in 1913.
By 1939, it’s obvious World War 2 has started as the committee decided to donate the proceeds of the whist drive to a soldiers’ and sailors’ charity.
In January 1940, the hall had been blacked-out because of the war (to make sure no light could escape to help enemy bombers find their targets).
This meant the tennis club couldn’t have an annual dance there, but they still planned afternoon teas on the courts.
Food rationing started in January 1940, and the minutes from April that year thanked a Mrs Evans who had “kindly promised to give 1lb of sugar for next Saturday’s tea”.
There’s actually very little talk of the war itself in the minutes from these years of conflict. 
The club decided to allow members of HM Forces to play for free and the minutes note they’d only managed to play one match in the troubled 1940-41 season.
At this point, it’s clear the village of Creigiau was growing bigger. 
The 1941 Annual General Meeting (AGM) minutes say: “It was quite possible there would be many applications for membership for people newly come to reside in Creigiau.” 
Those who turned up for the AGM discussed “whether they should be allowed to join and enjoy all the club privileges paying the same as old members or whether an entrance fee should be charged.” 
They decide to leave the decision to the committee who’d carefully consider each application and vote on whether newcomers would be accepted as members. 
Minutes also record how applicants were turned down while other members banned for life for not paying their subscriptions.
In 2022 we welcome all new members to Creigiau Tennis Club – details of how to join are at the end of this article.
In the 1946 AGM, the club congratulates itself on how it kept going during World War 2.
“The Chairman… thought we had gone through the season successfully and mentioned that Creigiau Tennis Club was one of the few clubs in the county which had carried on continuously though the war years,” say the minutes.

How the club almost folded – several times

Creigiau Tennis Club women team players in the late 1970’s

In 2022, Creigiau Tennis Club is going strong as we celebrate our centenary year.  See and download more pictures of club members here.

While it managed to survive the war, keeping Creigiau Tennis Club going for 100 years hasn’t always been easy. 
In 1946-47, the committee decided the club would be wound up because they only had 13 playing members. 
They wrote to Ely Brewery (responsible for the land the courts were on, behind the Creigiau Inn) to say they were giving up the lease.
By December 1947, the committee held a public meeting and decided they’d carry on, but in 1950 they were talking about winding up the club again.
This time it was because they didn’t have a groundsman to keep the grass courts playable. 
They eventually found a groundsman they were happy with. 
All the groundsmen would have been challenged by the work - atrocious weather conditions during the short summer grass tennis season come up time and again in the club’s minutes.
But in 1965 and 1967 they were again warning the club would have to close because of a lack of members but managed to bring in more players and donations to keep going.
The hot summer and the hosepipe ban of 1976 brought fresh challenges – this time the courts were in a poor condition because of the lack of rain, no groundsman, and price inflation which hit a whopping 16.54% that year.
Perhaps the biggest crisis came some 50 years after the club had started – when Castell Mynach Estates wanted to build houses on the land the club was on. 
By now, the club had 100 members. More than 1,000 villagers signed a petition to object against the plans which Taff Ely Council Borough Council initially turned down.
Although the club won that battle, Castell Mynach trustees didn’t renew the lease and the council asked the club to move to where it is now – Creigiau’s recreation ground.

The club’s home at Creigiau Recreation Ground 

Men’s singles winner Jeff Davies and club president David Padfield on the grass courts off Cardiff Road in 1978

Pictures from the 1980’s and afterwards show courts and players at the ‘Rec’. 
Hard courts replaced the more difficult- to-maintain grass surface and in 1982, Creigiau’s pavilion opened, managed by volunteers from the tennis club and other sporting organisations who used the ‘Rec’. 
Fun fact – the pavilion had the date 1981 put on it because the builders found it too difficult to create 1982 in brick.
Creigiau Tennis Club is looking forward to its centenary celebrations this year. 
To join the club, play tennis and be part of the fun, contact Trudi on 07768 386119. You can also email Trudi.
©Amanda Powell Media