What brought you to Alsager and Cheshire?

"The idea is, amongst my three years, I will visit 40 counties. We were up here for the Cheshire awards and we've combined that with a visit to Cheshire and managed to see five clubs, which is great.

"Visiting clubs is as much fun as anything. It's one of the best things about my role, like just meeting some really great volunteers, who put a lot of work in, for no remuneration – it's the lifeblood of our sport.

"Obviously coaches are the coalface, we need them to generate new players and keep people interested, but you need the volunteers behind them organising things."

Having had a look around, what are your first thoughts on Alsager Tennis Club?

"There are some nice new facilities at Alsager and it's good to hear we have helped with some of it, as the LTA. It's a really friendly club and it's great to see all four courts in use."

How pleasing is it to see all four courts in use?

"As the national governing body, it is our role to protect the future of the sport and get people playing tennis. Participation is the goal.

"If we get participation right we will get the odd good player come through and that then has an effect on also raising the sport's profile which feeds participation, so it's a big circle.

"Tennis is a really friendly sport and if you play a little bit around the place, you meet people." 

How do you think tennis has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic?

"We were quite lucky, as a sport, to be released by the Government and be able to play [during lockdown] and we took advantage of that. As far as I know, court bookings are up absolutely everywhere.

"Out of that we may attract one or two people from other sports, which is great for us. Tennis-wise, Covid has done us no harm."

Our club's committee has been working hard to secure new floodlights for our courts. How important is it club's continue to look to the future?

"As president, I'm humbled by all the hard-working volunteers you see at clubs all over the country, it's just fantastic.

"Getting new floodlights will be great. It just extends the season. One of the things we like to give money for, is if you create more playing hours.

"Well, the way to make more playing hours here, is the floodlights. And getting good quality floodlights is important, because as we get older we like good light.

"It's great to see a club [like Alsager] looking to the future, absolutely. I've really enjoyed my visit."

Matt Simpson

ALTC Media Officer
Senior Live Reporter (Digital)
StokeonTrentLive (The Sentinel)