Wallington Tennis Club

The Wallington Sports Club tennis section was established over 40 years ago and for many years had great successes in local tournaments. Unfortunately when the old clubhouse burned down in 1994 the then tennis section decided that they would need to find another club to play at, so left Wallington to go elsewhere.

With lottery funding in 1997 a new clubhouse was built at Wallington Sports Club, but the past members of the tennis section, happy in their new clubs, could not be tempted back. Sadly two hard courts, practice court and grass courts were left to sink into disrepair.

In 1999, two friends Geoff Tomlinson and Bea Ralph, looking for somewhere to play tennis on an ‘ad hoc’ basis, decided to approach the club with a view to making use of these abandoned courts. Bea wrote a proposal to the committee of WSC asking that she and Geoff be allowed to re-instate the tennis section. The committee agreed, that if  they could pay a yearly fee,  do their own maintenance, redo the grass courrt white lines , then they had the go ahead to re form the tennis section. Geoff and Bea sat down and worked out what they could offer to encourage people to come play on badly up kept courts, more importantly why they should pay for such a privilege.

The plan they came up with was to make the fee reasonable, so that even those on small incomes could afford it. To encourage families along, a minimal fee for those in full time education, and most importantly with no pre booking of court time, you could just turn up and play when ever the courts were free.
 
The only rules they would apply were, that correct shoes must be worn, if others were waiting to play you either asked them to join in to make up a four, or you finished your set and give those waiting a chance to play and most importantly you remembered to lock the courts and main gates after you.

All anyone had to do to become a member was to have the same ideals about fair play, pay an annual fee, and occasionally help in sweeping and de- weeding the courts. 

Friends of Geoff’s and Beas were the first to sign up (not surprisingly) then Geoff started knocking on his neighbours doors. By the beginning of April 2000 the tennis section handed over the first years subs. By November of that year the tennis section had grown from two people to a massive 30 members.

In 2007 we applied to the Sutton Youth Opportunity fund (SYOS) for a grant to refurbish our hard courts, redo the fences and start a youth coaching scheme. By now the tennis section had grown to 85 adult members and 50 youth members, still paying small, affordable yearly fees, and a permanent freelance coach. The courts however were getting to the stage where balls did not bounce where they should and annual sweep up removed great mountains of gravel,  so for Wallington tennis it was a necessity rather than purely cosmetic that we  resurface. To our utter delight we were successful with a grant application and work on the courts commenced January 2008 with the grand re-opening in May 2008.

The late Paul Weaver become a very active member of the tennis section, joining the committee and as a coach running classes for children on Saturday lunchtimes. We have been very lucky in sponsorship from SYOS enabling us to provide these lessons free for the whole of 2008. 

Paul‘s enthusiasm did not end with his encouragement to get us all, young and old, playing better tennis. From the moment he joined the club he pushed to get the old grass courts back into condition. In the summer of 2008 he encouraged one of our younger players to apply once again to SYOS for a grant to: re-sow, maintain, and fence in two new grass courts. SYOS once again came up trumps and work started on those in October 2008. An official opening day took place in May 2009.

So in those ten years Wallington tennis returned. We may never reach the standard that the old tennis section reached, but then that has never been the intention. The founder members wanted to create a club that was affordable by all, that would encourage children to participate in a sport. That was not elitist with strict dress codes, or tough entry standards, a club for those who just wanted to play tennis for the fun and exercise.