In 1884, several tennis clubs in Lancashire thought it a good idea to form an association of clubs. Yorkshire heard of this idea, thought it a good one and formed their association a few weeks before Lancashire did. This resulted in Lancashire being the second county in England to formally have a county association, known initially as the Lancashire County Lawn Tennis Association. Subsequently, during the 1990’s, the name of our organisation was changed to Tennis Lancashire.
In Lancashire we are always ahead of the pack. When we look at what we have achieved, the first county to have a County Office, prior to which we worked out of Eric Hindle’s bedroom, then Ian Shaw’s. We were the first county to have a part time paid County Development Officer, Alan Wilson and a part time paid County Coach, Chris Peet. We were also the first county to have paid County Administrators in Maureen, Gill and Colette.
Lancashire has also produced many LTA Presidents including Jim Cochrane, Malcolm Gracie and Peter Bretherton. Indeed, Peter was President during 2013 when Andy Murray won his first Wimbledon singles title.
Tennis Lancashire had our centenary dinner in Liverpool in 1984. At that time of the centenary Jim Cochrane was Chairman, Eric Hindle was Secretary and Ian Shaw was Treasurer.
In the following 39 years, three chairman have followed - Alan Jones, Peter Bretherton and Mike McBrien. As Secretary, following Ian Shaw, there has been Mike McBrien and Les Atkinson and as Treasurer, only Peter Horrocks has subsequently held the position.
As we enter 2024, we embark on some of the biggest changes ever to our organisation. From the 1st January, we will be incorporated as Tennis Lancashire Ltd ending our 140 years as a County Association governed by volunteers.
Our Executive Committee has thought long and hard whether to go down this path and there has been a great deal of work completed by the Incorporation Committee under the leadership of Chris Mansour, which has been both time-consuming and thorough. We are all in agreement that changing from an association to a limited company, will ensure that our organisation is fit-for-purpose and able to continue to develop and serve tennis within this modern and ever-changing sporting landscape.
The new company, Tennis Lancashire Ltd, will have a Board of Directors and several working committees, which are in the process of being finalised. We have recently seen several new volunteers join us, and they have been massive assets to the County, but we do need more as there are soon to be further changes as several current Executive members will leave their positions, as a result of the LTA’s new guidelines preventing volunteers serving for more than nine years in lead roles within a County.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our volunteers, officials, member clubs and coaches for supporting us through these changes. These are historic times for Tennis Lancashire and we look forward to the next 140 years and more as Tennis Lancashire Ltd.