Alan Russell , outgoing Head Coach, reports on a busy and successful year for the club in 2019.

To read the full report click here. Alternatively you can catch up on the highlights below. 

Summary and Highlights

Competition

2019 was a successful year for the club in individual and team competitions.

The highlights were:

• East Leagues - excellent performances by Ladies’ teams, including promotion for two teams
• Team Tennis - another outstanding league season with three teams in 1st place, four in 2nd place and two in 3rd place
• Scottish Cup - both Men and Ladies reached the quarter-finals
• Inter-club singles - both Men and Ladies reached the semi-finals
• Club championships - increased entry, with 106 players in 20 events
• Dunfermline Junior Open - increased entry, with 118 players in 15 events, player numbers up more than 30% from 2018
•  Individual performances - significant success in local, county, regional and national competitions; 10 players represented Scotland and/or East of Scotland
• A full and varied calendar of competitions throughout the year.

Coaching

Significant changes to coaching administration were made in 2019 - these had the impact of slightly reducing player numbers, but made the processes much more effective and efficient.

Key points:

• Holiday camps - 22 camps in Easter and Summer holidays, but not Autumn due to clubhouse renovation
• Development groups (for all players), Performance squads (for competing players) and Cluster squads (organised with other clubs in Central & West Fife) ran throughout the year
• Indoor mini tennis was provided in Spring and Winter terms
• Adult coaching was delivered to 58 players in Beginner, Beginner Plus, Improver, Team and Cardio Tennis groups
• Three coaches gained new LTA coaching qualifications. We also trained 12 new Tennis Leaders, 10 Primary School teachers and a large number of school Sports Ambassadors.

Social Tennis

Social tennis continued largely unchanged throughout 2019:

• Weekday daytime sessions are consistently busy but numbers in the evenings are variable
• Sunday afternoons sessions have effectively stopped but Social Doubles events ran on the first Sunday of some months
• Two ‘pilot’ Junior Club Night / Girls’ Night sessions ran but these were not offered regularly enough to meet demand.

Schools and Community

• Our Schools and Community programme continued to grow:
• Primary Schools coaching – funding from Carnegie Dunfermline Trust via Dunfermline and West Fife Sports Council helped us introduce tennis to more than 2,280 children
• Schools competitions – our two Mini Wimbledon events reached their capacity of 48 teams
• Prince’s Trust Achieve project (three schools) and Disability Sport Fife Academy (two schools) were delivered along similar lines to 2018
• We delivered a wide range of other tennis development activities in schools and the local community.
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Participation

Overall participation in our tennis programme increased to an estimated 3,350 (3,180 in 2018).

Dunfermline Tennis & Bridge Club